About me ...

My name is Ashleigh Heyns and I illustrate children's picture books. I am a self taught artist and illustrate using paper collage. I chose this medium because it is whimsical and playful - much like children. I live in Zimbabwe and raised my family here. I trained in Early Childhood Education and Care and spent twenty years as a nursery school teacher. I  learned a lot about children and stories, and art in that time and developed my skills through the many art projects I created for and with my students. I work on books full time now and am represented by Aoife Ritchie and Lara Reid at the Lennon Ritchie Literary Agency. https://lennonliterary.com 

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I have also created a colouring book called Whimsy Woods, A Nature Colouring Book which I based on the Miombo Woodlands which form much of our landscape not only in Zimbabwe but covers 2.7 million kilometers of land on the African continent. My dream for this book is to give our children something about home. Something they can learn from and connect with and feel a part of. I worked digitally to create this book and appreciated the quiet, relaxed process of the work and being able to work from my couch, the top of a rock, a doctors waiting room, the passenger seat of my hubby's car and most often, a blanket on the grass.

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I have always loved picture books and creating them feels like it comes naturally. I was asked to draw a picture of my favorite story at age seven,  in my second year of school, I was seven years old. I folded my page in half, again and again until I had enough sections to draw the scenes of my favorite story in. My teacher was so impressed with the art piece that it was framed and hung outside the schools office. I won a special prize for art that year and knew that that was what I wanted to do.

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