illustration:

Geoff Hocking began to illustrate for children when working in the UK in the 1970s. His first published illustrations were for children's records released by the EMI subsidiary Music For Pleasure. Geoff was the art director for the children's sub-label and oversaw the introduction of the Merry-Go-Round label at MFP.

He left MFP when he was commissioned to illustrate a six-book series, called 'Canal Street', for Nelson UK. After that he worked almost entirely on children's books for the next three years until returning to Australia in 1975. Books for Hamlyn, 'Who Was There?' and 'Who Lives Here?', and others for MacMIllan, 'Seaside Maths', 'Going Places Maths' and 'Seasons' [shown at right] were just some of the projects worked on.

After his return to Australia Geoff illustrated for several of the Melbourne-based arms of the publishers he had worked for in the UK., and in time has illustrated for almost all of the major international publishing houses.

His book 'The Boy Who Painted The Sun', with text by Jill Morris, published in 1982 by Penguin was short-listed for Children's Picture Book of the Year and the first in Australia to show his name on the cover. 'Saturday Street', again with Jill Morris, and 'I Shot an Arrow', with Robin Klein' followed.

Geoff went to work with the Five Mile Press and has produced a score of titles for them, including 'Said Hanrahan', the 'Kid's Guide Series' and his own 'It's One World', and his illustrations were combined with the work of Ian Forss in Bryce Courteney's 'The Australian Historic Collection' published by Five Mile.

Included in his work for Five Mile were the miniature 'Aussie Slang' and 'Jokes' series, the illustrations [well cartoons really] have been enlarged and re-used time and again in any number of books which bear titles such as 'Great Aussie Slang', 'More Great Aussie Slang', 'Great Aussie Jokes' and even 'Great New Zealand Slang' and 'New Zealand Jokes about Aussies'.

Geoff has also illustrated for commercial clients and has also created a series of highly collectable illustrated posters for the Castlemaine & District Festival of Gardens, since its inception almost 25 years ago.

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