Rumbidzai Marilyn Savanhu
Rumbidzai Marilyn Savanhu is a Zimbabwean born UK based illustrator and writer with a strong sense of colour, composition and pattern. For Rumbidzai these are the most important elements of her process when approaching visual storytelling. She works mainly digitally with Photoshop and Procreate but she likes working from her sketchbooks when experimenting with new ideas.
When approaching this piece for Poetry Birmingham I tried to incorporate as many of the motifs mentioned in the poems as possible. One image that struck me was of the small yellow flowers from Ian Humphreys ‘Tormentil’. I knew immediately that I wanted to create a field scene to showcase yellow flowers. I also wanted to create the image to have a narrative and make you wonder what would happen next or what has happened before the moment drawn.
Much like previous issues I wanted my piece to be like a painting and created a frame for it using imagery from the other poems. Pattern work is a huge part of my culture and I wanted to incorporate that with the motifs in the border—houses, cats, magic, plants, etc.
@marykeepsgoing
www.marykeepsgoing.com