Meet the author

Freya Hartas.

Illustrator · United Kingdom

Freya Hartas: a Bristol illustrator whose richly detailed artwork for the bestselling Slow Down nature books turns close looking and mindfulness into something calm and cosy.

Freya Hartas is a British illustrator based in Bristol, a first-class graduate of Falmouth University. She is best known for illustrating Magic Cat Publishing's bestselling Slow Down series — Slow Down: 50 Mindful Moments in Nature with Rachel Williams, and the companion Slow Down and Be Here Now with Laura Brand — in which everyday nature moments are paused just long enough for children to watch them unfold: a snail's silvery trail, a spider spinning its web, a pea shoot uncurling towards the light. Her richly detailed, warmly coloured artwork turns close looking into a form of calm, making mindfulness feel natural rather than instructed. Soothing and giftable, the Slow Down books have become a much-loved fixture of the wind-down shelf for curious, nature-loving children and the grown-ups reading alongside them.