Everyone remembers a few picture books from their childhood that seemed to have a kind of magic.

They were the ones that you could lose yourself in from as early as you can remember; the ones your parents would be asked to read to you time and time again.

Thomas Docherty decided he didn't want to leave that sense of magic behind in his childhood, so when he left art college he decided to try his hand as a children's book illustrator.

Setting himself up in a tiny studio space in Barton Hill, just down the road from his St George home, Thomas gradually began to carve out a career in a highly competitive industry.

The 33-year-old's decade of hard work has paid off, because he has just been short-listed for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for children's illustration.

If he comes away with the award at the ceremony, to be held in London on June 25, Thomas knows it could give his career a serious boost – making him a sought-after name in the industry.

"All the great names in children's illustration have won the Kate Greenaway Medal, so it's a real honour to make it on to the short list. If I win it, I know it will change everything."

Thomas was raised in Salisbury, and studied in Plymouth before living for a couple of years in Madrid – so he could learn Spanish.

But when he came back to the UK in his early 20s, he decided it was time to develop a career.

"The only thing I've ever wanted to do was children's book illustrations," he says. "I moved to Bristol because I had friends here, and I thought the city's vibrant artistic scene would make this a good place to work.

"I spent a few years working in 3D computer imagery for a design company, in order to pay the bills, but in the end I realised I'd need to make the leap into illustrating full time if I was to make a real go of it."

Thomas set himself up with his tiny studio in a collective art space, In Bristol Studios in Barton Hill, and set to work developing some of his ideas into books.

"I used some of my savings to take a trip over to the European children's publishing fair in Bologna, and I showed my work to hundreds of different publishers.

"I was lucky enough to be offered a deal by a Taiwan-based publishing company, Grimm Press, who went on to produce my first book in 2005, Pip and the Lost Dream, which is about a girl who struggles to remember her dreams each morning when she wakes up.

"But breaking into the British publishing market was much more difficult. It took a couple more years before I finally found somebody willing to publish my work in this country, Templar, who have been absolutely brilliant."

Templar published To The Beach – a picture book telling the story of a boy who gets through a rainy day by imagining spending time at the beach with a camel.

They also agreed to publish Thomas' next work, Little Boat , last year – it is this piece that has been shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal.

"I had the idea after a friend said she was feeling a bit low, and felt like a little ship on the ocean. I thought it was a wonderful image," he says.

"So I roughed out a story for the book. There may only be a sentence of writing on each page, but it's coming up with the story that's the hardest bit.

"I decided we'd see the ship face a storm and encounter a whale, and undergo various other trials, before finally finding happiness in its own part of the sea.

"I think you always need to have a strong message for the children that will be reading the book.

"For example, I've just completed another book called Big Scary Monster, which is published in August.

"It's about a big scary monster who lives on top of a hill and spends all his time frightening the little creatures that live near him.

"He eventually gets bored with this, and sees a lot of other small creatures far away in the valley below. So he goes down into the valley to scare them too. It's only when he gets to them that he realises they're actually big creatures – towering over him – and his mistake was all about the scale of looking at something from a distance.

"The message there is that you shouldn't bully people and you have to be humble, because although you may feel like the big guy at the moment, very soon you might find that you're in a different situation where you have become the small guy."

Since moving to Bristol, Thomas has married his partner Helen, and they have an 11-month-old daughter Lucia.

"I've learnt a lot about children's books already by having my own daughter," he says. "She's too young to be able to read the books, but she already loves the illustrations, and what children love most about books at that age is the theatre of having them to read aloud to them by their parents or teachers."

Thomas has now started visiting schools in Bristol to perform his stories and to try to learn more about the way children engage with his creations.

"I love going out to the schools and telling the stories, while sketching out the pictures on a flip chart," he says. "The kids really get involved in the story. It's at this time, when they're young school children, that you can really give them a love for literature.

"It's that magic of the picture book I first developed at infant school that has brought me to where I am today."

For more information about Thomas' work, visit his website at www.thomasdocherty.co.uk.