Ruth Sanderson is an illustrator with a long career of creating illustrations for children’s books, fairy tales and fantasy. Her book illustrations have garnered multiple awards, including her own original fairy tale, The Enchanted Wood.
She cites as her influences American illustrators like Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth and Norman Rockwell, along with the English Pre-Raphaelite painters and the landscape artists of the Hudson River School.
Landscape plays an important role in her storybook themed paintings, with lavishly forested settings filled with detailed flora as a backdrop for fairies, knights, princesses and Mother Goose characters.
In addition to galleries of illustrations in various categories, her web site has a cover gallery of books she has illustrated, arranged by years, and a page of step-by-step process for several of her paintings.
YES! Thank you for featuring her. I discovered her years ago when I picked up her version of the 12 Dancing Princesses story at a second hand book sale. I have tried to get a hold of more of her books, unfortunately they’re mostly out of print. I really wish her publisher would bring them back to the market. I know a lot of children’s libraries who eat up well illustrated fairy tales- which are surprisingly hard to come by.
I remember having a fairlytale book that had similar illustrations but they were embossed and very detailed but look similar to this artist and I was wondering if she had a really old collection of fairytales bound in a book. One of the stories I remember most is the little mermaid and it was the original story which was sadly bueatiful, and I was wondering if anyone may have any information on such a book.