Anna Koska – författare

‘The beginnings of a bitter-sweet commission: a mistle thrust’s egg, heralding a brief but very welcome return to spring… This year has been in such a hurry, at times almost tripping over itself in its keenness to reach autumn, and now she’s here.’ Highly respected illustrator Anna Koska is best known for her drawings of fish and fruit and is widely celebrated by food journalists and restaurateurs. In this mindful, artistic journal, Anna celebrates the natural world; the changing of the seasons, the blossoming of flowers and the ripening of fruit. Working in watercolour, pen and ink, oils and luscious egg tempera, Anna’s illustrations are reproduced in beautiful detail and they are accompanied by her musings and observations of objects, engaging us in the everyday realities of her artistic practice.Anna sources inspiration from the flora and fauna in the fields and forests surrounding her home in East Sussex. Her illustrations root us in nature, allowing us to pause to admire and appreciate the beauty and significance of everyday occurrences – whether she is drawing wasps feasting on apples fallen in the orchard, or trying to capture the cerulean blue of a winter sky.In this book, image and narrative text are wedded to create a beautiful journey through the seasons, taking time to appreciate our surroundings.‘It started with my favourite fish, a red mullet, all bronze, copper, gills and scales. Then mackerel, coloured like a Scandi sky. Soon enough, I was seduced by a sketch of figs and Anna’s alluring tones.’ Allan Jenkins, Observer Food Magazine.

‘The beginnings of a bitter-sweet commission: a mistle thrust’s egg, heralding a brief but very welcome return to spring… This year has been in such a hurry, at times almost tripping over itself in its keenness to reach autumn, and now she’s here.’ Highly respected illustrator Anna Koska is best known for her drawings of fish and fruit and is widely celebrated by food journalists and restaurateurs. In this mindful, artistic journal, Anna celebrates the natural world; the changing of the seasons, the blossoming of flowers and the ripening of fruit. Working in watercolour, pen and ink, oils and luscious egg tempera, Anna’s illustrations are reproduced in beautiful detail and they are accompanied by her musings and observations of objects, engaging us in the everyday realities of her artistic practice.Anna sources inspiration from the flora and fauna in the fields and forests surrounding her home in East Sussex. Her illustrations root us in nature, allowing us to pause to admire and appreciate the beauty and significance of everyday occurrences – whether she is drawing wasps feasting on apples fallen in the orchard, or trying to capture the cerulean blue of a winter sky.In this book, image and narrative text are wedded to create a beautiful journey through the seasons, taking time to appreciate our surroundings.‘It started with my favourite fish, a red mullet, all bronze, copper, gills and scales. Then mackerel, coloured like a Scandi sky. Soon enough, I was seduced by a sketch of figs and Anna’s alluring tones.’ Allan Jenkins, Observer Food Magazine.

Highly respected illustrator Anna Koska is best known for her drawings of fish and fruit and is widely celebrated by food journalists and restaurateurs. In From Coast and Cove, a mindful, artistic journal, Anna celebrates the natural world of the English coastline throughout the seasons. ‘A sea breeze wafts up from every page. This book is a delight.’ – Nigel Slater Both grounding and uplifting, From Coast & Cove, the new book from author and acclaimed illustrator Anna Koska, walks us through the four seasons on the English coast. Beautifully observed, contemplative and deeply personal, Anna combines emotive and evocative tales of life beside the sea with her exquisitely detailed and intricate illustrations of the plants and wildlife found in the water and along the coastline.Anna and her family moved from East Sussex to Devon in 2020 and she now finds inspiration for her artworks in the ebb and flow of the tide throughout the year, the flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shore and the creatures spotted in the air, on land and tucked away in rockpools – whether it’s the haunting cry of the curlew heard while kayaking along the River Dart, the iridescent scales and pointed teeth of a hake, the mussel shells discarded by an oystercatcher, or the kelp, wrack and eelgrass strewn along the beach and pressed for posterity.A love letter to the natural world captured in materials ranging from pencil, pen and ink, watercolour and egg tempera, From Coast & Cove details an artist’s year spent beside the sea. A book to savour, and a wonderful celebration of nature’s cycles and minutiae.