Scottish Children’s Author & Illustrator 2024! Who is Denise McKeever?
What inspires her to write & draw?
One of the most crucial decisions I ever made in my career was the decision to go to Art College. As a young person I had ambitions to be a Fashion designer and received an unconditional offer to attend both Heriot-Watt University Scottish Borders Campus-Galashiels and Edinburgh College of Art. My years at Edinburgh as a young student were fabulous and opened my eyes to a world of various forms of art & design I had never considered before.
The privilege of attending Art College was the opportunity to have a taster of everything from sculpture, ceramics, product design , graphics, animation, stain glass, tapestry, fine art, jewellery silver smithing, interior design to fashion design. That first love of drawing cartoon characters convinced me of my choice to choose to study for four years at an Art college over a Technical University for Textiles. Still to this day 37 years on this was one of the best decisions I ever made in life.
During this same time I became a late adopter to reading starting with self help and personal development books and also business books introduced to me through my father a self made entrepreneur and business owner. As the years progressed reading has become a key interest and love only second to Art leading me to roles as a Business Mentor to CEO’s & young business start-ups.
Today after over 20 years as a business owner in the Textile & Retail industry I have returned to one of my early passions drawing and illustrating combined with my second love writing.
My first attempt at children’s illustration began with ‘My First Friend’ depicting my family Golden Retriever dog Polly and my sisters dog Penny. ‘My First Friend’ has received great results in America selling in over 42 U.S.A States. But my favourite book of all is ‘My Scottish Alphabet’ with my own unique characters and personalities of Nessie, Midge & Highland Cow.
