EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 8 © 2014 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

5 how that happened. I certainly never expected to still be illustrating after all this time. Although the clients have changed over the years I’m probably enjoying it more than ever. JM: Did you have any favourite publishing houses that you enjoyed working for? LE: I didn’t takemuch notice of the publishing house but I did have particular Art Directors that I preferred to work for. They tended to move around from one publisher to another quite a bit but were inclined to keep using their favourite artists. Some art directors were easy to work with some were just a pain. Fortunately part of the job of an illustrator’s agent is to act as a kind of buffer between the artist and the more unreasonable clients. JM: Did you have a definable ‘Les Edwards’ style back in the early days or were you copying and imitating other styles until your own started to shine through? LE: I think everyone is a product of their influences. That said, I’m not really conscious of having a style. A lot was said about it at art school in the sense that it was felt to be essential and some people spent time trying