New Artist: Alex Howes

24 July 2026

We're delighted to welcome Alex Howes to the Hive! Her work is bursting with character, humour and imagination.

Please can you tell us where you are from and where do you currently live and work? Has this affected your work?

I am from the UK, but moved to Sweden 10 years ago now. My career in illustration really only took off when I moved here and so living in Sweden has had a huge influence on my work.

What inspired you to be an illustrator?

Growing up, I was always reading and was captivated by fantastical illustrations by the likes of Quentin Blake and John Burningham.

How long have you been working as an illustrator?

I graduated back in 2008, but only really began working properly when I moved to Sweden in 2016.

How would you describe your illustration style?

It's heavily character driven. I worked for a time at Aardman Animations and I think that that experience really fueled my desire to create illustrations that have a lot of life, character and humour in them.

Who/What have been your key influences as an illustrator?

Growing up reading Roald Dahl, Richard Scarry and Beatrix Potter, their choice of using animals as the central character to their stories has led me to make the same choice for my characters. I'm most at home when the central character is an animal!

What type of projects, clients, or illustration markets would you like to work in?

I love working with character driven, humourous stories where a child's imagination can be let loose.

What do you like doing when you are not illustrating?

I love animals (of course!), so playing with our lovely puppy Corky. I also love gardening and since moving to a house I'm slowly turning our garden into a little English cottage garden.

What would be your dream project?

I used to live in Japan and find it such an exciting country. My dream project would be to go there and create lots of observational drawings and a picture book from that.