Dave Petzold

I am an author and illustrator living on
Bundjalung Country
in the northern rivers of Australia

We Live in a Bus
2024, Thames&Hudson

The Kindness Club
2022, Bright Light (Hardie Grant), written by Kate Bullen-Casanova

Seven Seas of Fleas
2020, Starfish Bay, CBCA Shortlisted for the New Illustrator Award in 2021

My grandparents had a huge influence on me when I was young and I must attribute my love of creating children's books to them. My Grandpa was an engineer and an artist who worked with leather and wood and occasionally dabbled in opal polishing, diamond faceting, and taxidermy. My Grandma had an amazing garden and a pet galah, fondly known as Cocky. Their home in Adelaide was filled with heirlooms and trinkets that had traveled with them from Munich in the late ‘50s, and as a boy I loved spending time in that wonderfully strange and eclectic world.

I loved the small cuckoo clock hanging in the hall and the unfinished wooden carving of a Clydesdale on the credenza, but the garage was my favourite place to hang out. Grandpa had a small studio at the back, and I’d squeeze past the old Holden and sit at his drafting table. Insects in formaldehyde lined the walls and a red taxidermy crab with one huge claw hung on the wall. In a corner there was a piano accordion and an opal polishing wheel. But the biggest influence was seeing my Grandpa’s rough sketches for his leatherwork, tucked away in the pages of his bird books.

I don’t think they realised it but this is where the seeds of my imagination were planted and through them I gained a love of making things, exploring, and above all, being curious. I love creating characters who are curious and question the status quo, and I hope that if you read my books you become curious about your world, too.

I use a mixture of traditional and digital when creating my illustrations. I work initially with graphite pencil, ink or oil paint to create the line work and then I move to the computer to add colour and texture.