How I make the illustrations ...
My illustrations are mixed-media digital creations. Every page begins with my own hand-drawn sketches to map out the scene. From there, I build and transform the designs using a modern digital toolkit—blending hand-editing, Canva elements, and AI generation to bring the characters and landscapes to life.
Often, I’ll change the storyline as I go, which means completely abandoning a finished piece to start fresh, but that’s all part of the creative process - and the fun!
Illustration station
... and weird inspiration
As with most creative ideas, my characters are cobbled together from bits of memories that have been flung in a mental drawer, rattled around a bit, and then resurface.
Creating the Bubble Buckie was cathartic - likely a throwback to the snail sanctuary I briefly kept as a child in the garden. I thought one of them might be magical. I never did find out; snails can climb out of goldfish bowls ...
Boots is directly inspired by 'The Hound of Geevor' at Kelvingrove Art Gallery. Many years ago, I was chased out for painting a picture of him in oils, whilst sat on their lovely marble floor. Apparently, this is frowned upon.
Perhaps things like this float around in our memory, bumping against our consciousness randomly until we finally find a use for them ...
About Commissions
If you like my naive style of artwork, and have a story of your own you'd like to illustrate, get in touch for a chat! I do occasionally undertake commissions, depending on my day-to-day workload, but in any case, it's always lovely to chat to a fellow writer!