Meet Laura K Sayers: The Illustrator Bringing Faith and Whimsy to Paper Art

When I first met illustrator Laura K Sayers at what was then my family’s new church, she immediately made an impression. She carries herself with undeniable creative grace, and at 30 years old, laughingly describes herself as an 80-year-old trapped in a young person’s body. Although she takes up vertical space with her stature, her demeanour is mild mannered and inviting. The unassuming artist has a commanding social media presence, which features not only her illustrations, but also the miniature, mixed media, paper-cut work that’s gaining her swift interest. 

Creative and spiritual formation 

Laura grew up a pastor’s kid in a conservative Baptist family in Ipswich. In her teens, the family moved to Oxford, where the growing pains of rigorous obedience were buffeted by a comforting interest in art. Looking to spread her wings a bit further afield, Laura travelled to Edinburgh School of Art for university. Not only did she find a soft place to land creatively, she also began to form her own personal faith with the help of the Christian Union and thriving local church scene. “I had a really good experience,” she says of art school, “because I enjoyed the time to play and figure things out. It’s permission to explore and have feedback”. In the best way, she lived life in a Christian bubble, thriving as an artist and learning how the strict edges of her formative years would lead to a grounded, word-informed faith, without bells and whistles. 

AI is rubbish and looks rubbish, so people crave handmade things a bit more

At university, Laura found herself drawn to mixed media, primarily working with paper. “I sketch things out, first of all, and then I cut lots of shapes and gradually build up to a piece, assembling it as I go along. Then I often use paint or coloured pencils to add small details. I do a lot of editing things afterward on my laptop, but the joy is in the handmade bits. AI is rubbish and looks rubbish, so people crave handmade things a bit more. The thing I like about paper is you can just tear something off if it’s not working. It’s a very pernickety way of working, and it’s quite easy to be a perfectionist about it. I think it also has a lot of freedom to it because you can take things apart and put them back together, or sometimes reuse things”. 

Learning to let go

Laura comments that: “more recently I’m doing a lot more paintings for backgrounds and things, especially for books. Everything had gotten quite neat and actually now I’m learning how to let go of those things. I don’t want it to look as though things had been made digitally or by machine, so I’m trying to include small imperfections that naturally happen. Painting brings a bit of unpredictability. The paper stuff is quite slow working, so to build things up with paint is quite immediate, and a bit more fun”. 

This style is beautifully apparent in Laura’s illustrations for Kristyn Getty’s debut children’s book, We Sing!: Teaching kids to praise God with heart and voice (Crossway). When asked how the collaboration came about, Laura is quick to offer her fondness for the singer-songwriter, who is half of the Irish duo The Gettys. “It’s a nice match. I grew up with her music, so I knew her name; I hadn’t known what she’d built. It’s massive what they’ve built together, so to remember those songs I really cared about as a child was really nice. I’d done these book covers for a really small publisher up in Scotland for a kids’ series of books, and the art director at Crossway had seen my work. I had a little chat with him and sent a bunch of things that I’d worked on, they started looking for a good match [for Kristyn’s book] as an artist and they chose my work. But I’ve never spoken to her. It’s not collaborative in that way, but it’s amazing to see how she shares it and how it’s taken on a different level”.

Owning her faith

When contemplating whether work created around her faith pigeonholes her at all, Laura is refreshingly honest. “You never know what someone thinks of your work and if they come along and see that you’ve done a lot of [Christian] jobs, maybe they think: ‘That’s all that she’s interested in.’ I feel like I was being very silly and protective about my work and not allowing it to be seen as Christian. But it’s such a big part of my life, and I know there’s so much stuff in the Bible about being ashamed of Jesus…I do wonder sometimes if I hinder myself by being ashamed of the work that I’ve done. I don’t want to work with someone who judges me for my faith. Sometimes I’ll post something on Instagram about my faith and I’ll lose a bunch of followers, and I’m like, well…if they’re going to unfollow me because I have freedom of speech to talk about my faith, it’s fine, good riddance”. 

Laura’s social media following is impressive, but she also sees the hidden pitfalls. “I kind of resent having to be on social media all the time…Once a certain amount of people see a certain thing, they follow you, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they care about your work. I appreciate the ones who are actually invested and not just followers”. She credits her popularity on Instagram with joining the Paper Artist’s Collective at uni, having her work shared across other accounts and building gradual interest over time, especially in her miniature works, as “people love tiny things”.

I’m not interested in copying secular artists in a Christian way. I’m interested in making good things

When considering being a Christian artist, Laura ponders perceptions around likeability and pleasantness. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m a bit of a Thomas Kincaid [Christian American artist known for his idyllic country-scapes], because nothing bad happens in these images I’m making. But then I think you need more work that speaks of better things to come. I want every project, whether it’s Christian or non-Christian, to be wholehearted and interesting. I’m not interested in copying secular artists in a Christian way. I’m interested in making good things”. 

Looking to the future

Becoming a mother-to-be has also left her pondering new facets of work and womanhood. “That’s the thing [about] being a woman, in any job you’ve got. Becoming a mum gives up a lot of your life and freedoms. Maybe I’ll have kids and I’ll never come back to it and that will be me forever. It puts things into perspective”. 

Laura is creating small things in a new way this season, and giving a nod to what’s to come: this spring, a solo residency in Norway; pitching a children’s book of original material; and an upcoming exhibition in a literal tiny gallery in Provo, Utah. “It fits one person at a time on their hands and knees with a magnifying glass”. She has enough small things to keep her going into what looks to be a grand future, beyond art and illustration. “I’d love to be one of those old ladies who everybody respects and is weird and artsy and has a sort of power to them”.

 @lauraksayers