In her illustration, you can sense Lucy Claire’s willingness to connect with people. ‘It’s just a part of me,’ she says of her work—and that feels uncannily true. Lucy makes art in the same way most of us would hug a friend or hold a deep conversation, it’s organic and personal, a natural response to heartfelt emotion.

Her signature work – hand sketched and water coloured – captures small scenes that speak volumes. Some of Lucy’s most celebrated works pinpoint specific cultural moments and honour those in the public eye: Jürgen Klopp saying goodbye to the Kop, a tribute to Queen Elizabeth, a fair few Taylor Swift pieces. She also has the knack of producing illustrations and writings that cut to the heart of the most universal themes – love, loss, hope.

Her ability to express and connect on such a vulnerable level comes, in part, from an awareness and openness about her own story. She plays this down – when praised for the wisdom in her work, her response is, ‘I’m not wise, I’m just learning with you’, but Lucy’s learning curve on life (and its volatility) has been steep.

Aged 18, Lucy lost her sight due to diabetes. She was medically blind and unsure if-and-when her ability to see would come back. ‘It’s a big reason why I draw every day, and I’m quite obsessed with it, because I don’t know if tomorrow I’ll wake up and not be able to see – so my motto is draw as much as I can each day.’

Lucy’s sight slowly returned, ‘After that, I had to figure out a new way to design,’ she says, ‘I couldn’t see pencil on paper, so I started using an iPad – that’s when I really started finding my style.’  Most of Lucy’s artwork carries on this mixed-media approach, sketching by hand and then developing and building in the digital space. Having studied fashion design at university, she’s comfortable blending mediums to get the best outcome.

Creativity surrounded Lucy Claire in her early years. She jokes that her family makes artists in the same way that doctors see their children enter the medical profession. ‘I can’t remember a time when we weren’t drawing’ she says of herself and her siblings. Her dad, Geoff Dunbar, is an acclaimed animator and director – working with Paul McCartney and on childhood classics such as Peter Rabbit. ‘He’s the most talented person – he can draw anything. He was always drawing around us.’

Lucy is following in her father’s footsteps with her first book The Book of Gifts being published this November. ‘It’s really a book I wish I’d had when I was going through all my challenges,’ she shares.

The Book of Gifts is full of hand-illustrated original artwork by Lucy, and like all her drawing, it comes from a deeply personal place, ‘I realised more and more that everyone is going through their own storm – and your story is kind of your super-power. So, I’m not afraid to share mine anymore, and if it helps one person, then I can deal with being a bit embarrassed.’

Over the last few years Lucy Claire has built up a significant social community with almost half a million followers as @lucyclaireillustration – ‘they really are my second family on Instagram, I feel so safe within my community’. That community, her success, and her book deal with Penguin, have all developed organically, ‘I never set out to start something – I’m not entrepreneurial – I’m not sure how it happened…’

It’s this lack of ego or agenda that makes Lucy and her work so compelling, ‘I just put down what I feel on paper, I don’t really think about it,’ she says. ‘Knowing that I’m helping people, that’s what keeps me going – and say I do have a day where I think, I don’t have the energy to post, but people message and say, ‘I’m the light in their day,’ and that’s such an honour to be able to do that’.

If Lucy’s dream is to help people through her art, you see that she is perfectly placed to do so because she’s needed that help, and hope, herself.

Speaking of when she lost her sight a second time, she shares, ‘I had nothing left, I remember crying and I literally couldn’t pick myself up off the floor’ – that’s when her sister shared one of Lucy’s most closely-held mantras, ‘she said, ‘There’s always hope of a brighter tomorrow’ and I just really take that with me’.  It’s something Lucy repeats to herself daily, ‘and that’s what I hope the book does for people. There’s always hope. Your life might not go where you think it’s going to go, but you’ll be okay’.

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