Kieron Black

Kieron Black is an award winning artist, writer and book illustrator

who loves surfing, mountains, goblins, skateboarding, his wife,

daughter, their many pets and his bass guitar (though not necessarily

in that order).

His artwork is detailed and colourful, never allowing a space where an

idea could be, unless it’s one of his mountain landscapes where really

it’s a painting of space that happens to have some mountains in it.

He has illustrated dozens of children’s books in his career so far,

from The Big Fight and Jimean (O’Brien Press) to Boo Said The Banshee

and The Incredible Sister Bridget (Discovery Publications). He is a

regular contributor of both words and art to snowboarding / action

sports media platforms such as whitelines.com and mpora.com and when

he is not doing that he is one half of the father / daughter inline

skate performance group ‘The Chaos Train Circus’ who despite having

four whole tricks have yet to secure any bookings. And of course he is

the author and illustrator of The Goblin’s Blue Blanket, a beautifully

illustrated story about why you shouldn’t worry about the little

things.

Kieron’s travels have taken him to nearly every ocean on the planet

and a fair few of it’s mountains too. He has been knocked out cold in

the surf in Bali and chased by sharks off the beaches of Mexico and

South Africa. He once pulled a live Labrador out of the surf in

Bundoran, Ireland, and has extricated twigs out of his ear after

snowboarding into trees in the forests of Austria. At home in Northern

Ireland he once kitesurfed into someone’s garden and regularly chews

concrete at Bridges Skate Park in Belfast. (And speaking of ‘The

North’ if you look very carefully at episode 5, season 8 of Game of

Thrones you can see Kieron for 0.67 seconds in the top left hand

corner of your screen. Don’t blink.)

When he is not riding boards into things, painting, or fleeing from

dragons Kieron likes to teach art and storytelling and runs workshops

for young authors and artists in schools and colleges. He is an

academician of the Royal Ulster Academy of Art and regularly exhibits

his landscape work in galleries both at home and abroad. He is also a

keen multi-instrumentalist and performs with a handful of local

groups, specialising in bass guitar but happy to bang or blow on

anything that makes a noise. He is lives with his family on the east

coast of Northern Ireland. Contact him direct on kieronblack@aol.com

for bookings.