Newbury manga illustrator sets out to get noticed in her gap year

Twenty-year-old Burghclere artist Georgia Papworth is making good use of her gap year.

The former St Bart’s pupil hopes to go to Bournemouth University to study illustration and graphic design and is spending the time until then looking to get her name out in the industry, building up clientele for her pet and family charcoal portraits, and getting noticed by galleries.

With half-Indian heritage herself, she loves to explore different ethnicities and skin types in her work due to growing up in a school predominantly white and not seeing many other people of Asian background.

“I’m currently doing work experience internship for an illustrative company for Japanese manga books which is exceptionally enlightening to different styles of illustrations among Japanese cultures and subcultures," says Georgia.

“I have been drawing pretty much all my life." In terms of portraits she normally works from photographs.

“Some are in a more professional setting using a studio and digital camera to get the best detail, but often I just use my iPhone to take photos and draw from them.

“However I do love to draw from life which I have done many times as a relaxing activity on the weekends.”

Her favourite medium is charcoal and tonal pencil. “I love the way you can manipulate charcoal to create abstract and beautiful shapes with swift and messy movements.

“Tonal pencil is a medium I have worked with for many years and have taught myself different techniques to achieve a soft or textured realistic look for skin.

“However, I also more recently love working with ink and building tone by layering different dilutions of water and ink, it’s especially perfect for figurative drawings.”

Georgia’s ambition, outside of illustrating for books, “would definitely be to have my art up in galleries around the world”.