Sandra Laroche

After working as a designer of silk scarves for Hermès, Paris for over twenty years, I’ve decided to go with the flow of this much changed world & to simply indulge in the pleasure of painting.
Up until now travel has always been a part of my life, with France & Sweden being my very favourite destinations.
Now, in the tranquillity of my country studio I revisit images of these precious times imprinted on my memory.
Time on my hands has also made me refocus on my surrounds & on the beauty & life of the bush in my ‘backyard’.

To summarise, I concentrated on children’s book illustration in my early years & then turned to scarf design for the prestigious French House of Hermès, Paris.
Many of my designs have seen the light in silk, each a labour of love taking months to complete. Hermès sometimes refers to their famous ‘carrés’ as ‘jewellery in silk’.
Le Géographe’, my first silk scarf design, has been displayed in a number of major exhibitions & publications.

Word search me on the net under :

Sandra Laroche Hermès silk scarves
Sandra Laroche illustrator

Well known Australians such as film producer, Peter Weir; cartoonist, Bruce Petty & critic, Maurice Saxby have described my work as eclectic. Perhaps this is due to early years in book illustration, including Ethel Turner’s Classic, “Seven Little Australians”.

Given to pencils & brushes since my very early childhood, my real first awakening started as a young freelance artist in Sydney, working between several advertising agencies by day, & attending evening art classes at East Sydney Tech. Both worlds, in which I was mentored by extraordinarily gifted people, opened up wonderful chance opportunities.

Encouraged with early success, I soon travelled to Europe, falling under its artistic spell.
Ever since, countless similar forays, essential to my raison d’être, forever feed my designs with endless sources of inspirations translated with watercolour, gouache, pen & ink.

In 'Authors & Illustrators of Australian Children's s Books', Hodder & Stoughton, Sydney, 1990, Walter McVitty wrote:

Her strong sense of line and composition, combined with the application of delicate watercolour overlay and in fill, results in pictures, which radiate an appealing and affectionate softness and warmth. Her accurately observed scenes, full of interesting detail, depict robust joyousness and vitality, caught in a mood of relaxed informality, such as one finds in the work of Randolph Caldecott , Thomas Rowlandson and Carl Larsson, artists whose work she admires greatly.
Her talent for full colour illustration can be seen at its best in the superb Lansdowne deluxe edition of Ethel Turner's classic Seven Little Australians and The Snow Rose, an original story written by her husband Michel. She is an equally accomplished black and white artist, as can be seen through the exquisite vignettes drawn for John Pinkney's novel The Key and the Fountain. End of excerpt

Other titles amongst over two dozen books for children illustrated include: Capturing the Golden Bird, Jean Chapman, The Mushroom Feast, Michel Laroche & Aboard Endeavour, Bruce Stannard, launched on the decks of the Endeavour Replica, moored alongside the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney.

My books have been published in England, U.S.A., France and Japan, and work from them exhibited in Australia, Sweden, Italy, France and England.

Art to me is a broad palette of imagination, emotion, reality, delight, precision, linear form, detail, stillness, bold & delicate strokes & last but not least a touch of whimsy.

Thank you so very much for taking the time to look at my work.