Over the past 32 years, Ruth Sanderson has illustrated 75 books for children of all ages and retold and illustrated many fairytales, including The Twelve Dancing Princesses; Papa Gatto; Cinderella; The Golden Mare, the Firebird, and the Magic Ring; and The Snow Princess.  Her original fairytale The Enchanted Wood received both the Irma S. Black Award for best picture book of 1992 and the Young Hoosier Award in 1995. The Golden Mare, the Firebird and the Magic Ring won the Texas Bluebonnet Award in 2003. To continue with the fairytale theme, her latest project, Mother Goose and Friends, has fairies and elves cavorting in many of the rhymes. 

In addition to children’s books, Ruth has done book covers, advertising art, collector’s plates and greeting cards and her work has been licensed on many products.  She also creates personal paintings for exhibition and sale, often on various themes of the personification of nature.

The artists that have most inspired her are the English Pre-Raphaelites, the Hudson River School and the American illustrators Norman Rockwell, Howard Pyle, and N.C. Wyeth.  Ruth’s paintings have been included in exhibitions around the country, including at The Norman Rockwell Museum, The Society of Illustrators, The Original Art, the Delaware Museum of Art, the Art Museum of Western Virginia, the Words and Pictures Museum and numerous science fiction and fantasy conferences.