Sketchbook tour

I forgot to share it sooner, but I finally posted a sketchbook tour for YouTube! I've actually got another one waiting to be uploaded too, as this video took me so long to edit. I'm looking forward to getting more into YouTube in 2020.

Recent artworks

I've been drawing a lot of portraits lately as I find it fun and it's good to draw things for me, but it's something I always feel a little unsure of sharing as although I'm proud of them I don't want people thinking it's part of my 'brand' as an illustrator. It's a whole side of art business that I struggle with honestly, as it feels nowadays like you have to have your one aesthetic and stick to it but I'd get so bored! And honestly I think it's good to be versatile. But saying that, I don't think I'd ever want to do portraits as commissions as it'd no doubt lead to drawing people I don't care about which wouldn't be fun for me, so I keep them as just a hobby.

I used to draw portraits quite a lot with pencils, but because I'm a perfectionist I hated them if they weren't super photo realistic and it really sucked the fun out of it. So last year I began drawing them with ballpoint pens, something that scared me silly at the beginning as it's so permanent so there's obviously no way of erasing if you make a mistake, but it's actually really liberating and I feel I've learnt a lot from being forced to work with my mistakes. Because these are just for fun, they're all in my sketchbook. The top is Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, as it's turned out to be my favourite movie of the year and I'm lowkey obsessed. Second is Mika which is mt favourite of the three (look at those pinstripes!!), and lastly is Aaron Tveit which whilst I like, I had issues with my pen blobbing while I was drawing it (why do they do this though??)


And here's two other illustrations I've been working on. Above is from the Broadway adaptation of Moulin Rouge, and it's how they end Act 1 with Elephant Love Medley. I'm not keen on how the song has been reworked honestly, but visually it's amazing, and I had fun trying to translate specific people into my art style whilst still making it look like them, as usually I draw fictional characters so likeness isn't so important.


And this is from the finale scene of Wicked, and uh, spoiler alert? But Fiyero gets turned into the Scarecrow and I've always felt like he gets vastly overlooked within fan circles when this is a huge thing he goes through and a major sacrifice. I've always felt particularly attached to Fiyero though after reading the novel, his character is a lot more developed in that so I guess if you haven't read it it's easy not to care about what happens to him as he doesn't have a lot of stage time. This is actually a reworking of an art piece I did a year ago, which was in the midst of when I was finding my style, and because I was working on so much artwork at that time it felt outdated for how I was working even then. I really loved the concept though, and knew I wanted to revisit it at some point so I'm glad I now have a version to be proud of and feels more cohesive with my body of work.