Sarah Wilkins is a New Zealand illustrator who has lived and worked her way around the world.

Her award-winning art is created by hand, using inks, gouache, acrylics and pencil. Sarah’s commissions include editorial and children’s book illustration, posters, book covers, products and environmental design. They have appeared on buildings, buses, bags and many other curious places, but they feel most at home on the pages of beautiful books.

Sarah has a Master’s degree of Science in Society and a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication Design.

Read the 2025 World Illustration Awards interview with Sarah

Awards

  • Shortlist AOI World Illustration Awards 2025

  • Shortlist NZCYA Book Awards 2025 Russell Clark Award for illustration

  • Finalist Bologna Children's Book Fair 2024 Illustration Exhibition.

  • Selected for The dPictus Unpublished Picturebook Showcase 5, Bologna Children's Book Fair 2024.

  • PANZ Scholastic NZ Award 2023.

  • Sharjah Children's Book Illustration Award and Exhibition 2021.

  • NZCYA Book Awards - Picture Book Winner 2020.

  • Society of Illustrators 62 Exhibition, 2019.

  • AOI World Illustration Awards 2019 & 2015 Shortlist and Exhibition.

  • Storylines Notable Book Award 2018, 2014.

  • LIANZA Russell Clark Award for Illustration, 2003.

Annuals

  • Communication Arts

  • American Illustration

  • Society of Illustrators

  • 3×3 Magazine

  • Print Magazine

  • Society of Publication Designers

  • Australian Illustrators

Illustrated Books

  • Race to the South Pole: a two sided story

  • Diary of a Marine Biologist

  • Crane Guy

  • Poem for Ataahua

  • Rebel Girls 1 & 2

  • Chugga Tugga Tug Boat

  • The Sam and Lucy Fables

  • Abigail and the Birth of the Sun

  • Abigail and the Restless Raindrop

  • Abigail and the Make of the Moon

  • The Longest Breakfast

  • Like the Ocean We Rise

  • Mia Goccia Sul Melo

  • La Preghiera de un Passero

  • Conversations with the Goddesses

  • The Sam and Lucy Fables

  • Great Family Songbook

  • A Book is a Book

  • The Immigrants

Book Festivals

  • 2024 Picture Me, New Zealand.

  • 2022 Salon International du Livre Océanien, New Caledonia.

  • 2019 Festival des Petits Kiwis, New Zealand.

  • 2014 Taipei International Book Exhibition, Taiwan.

Clients include

Thames & Hudson, L.A. Times, Barnes & Noble, UNESCO, United Airlines, Time Inc., American Express, Pfizer, The Smithsonian, XXI Magazine, Walker Books Australia, Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Yoga Journal, Coastal Living, Texas Monthly, Cooking Light, Saveur, Parents Magazine, Madame Figaro, O Magazine, Boston Globe, The Daily Telegraph, Town & Country, Charles Schwab, Causette, Laurence King Publishing, Edizioniel Publishing, Djeco, Little Tiger.