I L L U S T R A T I O N / C O M M E R C I A L    N O T E S

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After 4 years at Art College studying fine art, plus 1 year of Teacher Training: Recovering these kinds of childhood illustrative skills may not seem particularly necessary to some artists - but I love those skills - and more importantly, I know both their folly and their worth. To me they are part of the long and complex history of being an artist in the world.
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I gave up teaching in schools after my first year and did many things to survive as an artist, I also gave up Theatre Design because it could have become a career and it took too much time away from the problems of painting. Freelance illustration seemed to be a way to earn some sort of a living.
The recieved wisdom goes... it can be perilous for 'artists' to turn to illustration to get by - but it's a snobbish and silly attitude, most artists don't have the traditional skills now to 'cut it' in that world anyway - even if they wanted to.
As an artist I'm centered in what I do, I understand what is and what isn't strategy. I reasoned I would be spending more time in the studio - so I took some of that time and put a folio of images together. I sold quite a bit of illustration over a few years with the help of a few agents - but eventually; if you wants to make it a career - you have to chase it very hard all the time, and I wasn't prepared to do that.

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Most of these illustrations were originated and painted using all the traditional drawing and rendering skills of using media on paper.The Airbrushing work is combined with highly controlled stencil cutting and control of the compressor and the various liquid paints and inks; that was shortly before the computer and clip-art really took over.
• Illustration is a very wide and complex commercial world, but I made a lot of contacts quickly, had 2 agents and did a great deal of 'footslogging' around London, Bristol and Cardiff with the portfolio. The quality of the illustrators portfolio is the crux of it all - that and the ability to understand a clients brief and to make deadlines. i.e.You are there to solve problems not to make them.