How did you discover your love for illustration and develop the skills you needed to enter the industry? I’ve always loved drawing. When I was very young, my grandparents used to give me envelopes to draw on after I’d run out of paper. I only seriously considered pursuing a career in illustration after my high school art teacher suggested it.

I did my foundation at the Leeds College of Art (now Leeds Arts University) and completed my BA at the Cambridge School of Art. Both helped me discover different aspects about my art and myself. Leeds College of Art helped me discover experimentation and playfulness that I still try to infuse into my illustration. Cambridge School of Art was first about grounding your work with observational drawing, whether it be outside or at life drawing once a week, and having a strong base to work from.

Cambridge School of Art also encouraged students not to just grab influence from illustrators but to find inspiration from museums, art, film, literature and the landscape. I think a lot of the art and films I discovered at uni still influence me today, especially the films of Powell and Pressburger as the technicolor images still have a massive influence on my illustrations.

I luckily managed to snag an editorial illustration gig straight out of uni, which is very rare. Semi-regular work has helped me develop my skills with each brief.

What personal experiences have most influenced your style? Mainly discovering new artists and exhibitions when I was younger. When I first saw David Hockney’s work in person at the art gallery Salts Mill in Saltaire, I think the vibrancy of color and texture had a great impact on me and my work.

My family are great lovers of animals, plants and nature, so I love incorporating that into my work where I can. My grandad had an amazingly colorful garden, so I think my love of color came from there.

Reading Derek Jarman’s novels and watching his films has also had a great impact on my work. If I ever feel creatively stuck or burned out, I go back to his book Chroma, which is all about color and what images spring up with each shade.

As someone who works exclusively with colored pencils, what attracts you to that medium? A lot of media feel too rigid for me to keep with. Unlike some other media, colored pencils are tactile. If you make a mistake, sometimes you can simply just color over it. In other media I’d tried before, I couldn’t achieve the vibrancy of color, which I can with colored pencils. It feels like a medium you can still experiment with—whether it be in layering colors or how you lay out each pencil mark on the paper.

You’ve worked with a range of clients in the editorial sector, like Politico and the New York Times, as well as creating album covers, posters and animated GIFs for clients. How do you adapt your creative approach to different projects, if at all? It really depends on what the client wants! I try to have a range of personal projects on my portfolio that the client can look back on. When I worked with The Brick Box, an international arts company in Bradford, United Kingdom, the team wanted me to incorporate their photos into the project—this has led to some clients wanting a collage-mixed-with-illustration style.

What have been some of your favorite projects that you’ve worked on, and how did they change your perception of what you can accomplish with illustration? I have a lot of favorite projects! I think the best ones come from a complete trust between the art director and the illustrator, where the art director has perhaps worked with you before and knows what you can achieve in the time you have.

Off the top of my head, I absolutely loved working with the musical group the Mountain Goats on their Spectral Tide tour poster, as the main instruction for the brief was to keep it within the theme of the tour. I got to be very free and loose with my sketch responses. I also love working with the art directors at the Baffler, as each brief I receive is always fun. I never know where it’ll head next.

In addition to your commissioned work, you’ve created comics and zines like The Map of Lost Mushrooms in 2024. How do you strike a balance between personal and client projects? Especially when coming out of university, it is hard to strike a good balance between work and personal projects without feeling too burned out. A great way I’ve found is having a Patreon, so I have an excuse to create personal work each month without feeling guilt. I try to make at least one big personal project brief for myself per year, either to try and get work in a new area or just to appease my own imagination. My goal for this year was to try create some A3-sized illustrations in response to Mary Oliver’s poetry, but I still need to get round to that.

What excites you about illustration right now, and where do you see the industry going? At the moment, it’s illustrators’ perseverance in the face of great adversity—which at this point is AI, among other factors—to still create awe-inspiring and beautiful work. I find the landscape of independent book publishing and independent magazines very exciting as it always feel like they’re breaking new ground with work and illustration the public hasn’t necessarily seen before, work that other mainstream publishers might be afraid to take a risk on.

What words of advice would you give an illustrator just starting out in their career today? I would just say it’s not all doom and gloom. Each year, the industry shifts in a different direction. I would say not to box yourself in as just an “editorial” or “book” illustrator, as work can come your way in surprising places. One of first few illustration gigs I received was with the Bronte Parsonage, creating work for Anne Bronte’s anniversary; so, I would simply say reach out where your interests guide you. ca