I’ve always loved drawing. Were it not for the fact that I was born into a building family with almost obligatory expectations that I would follow in the footsteps of my father and grandfather, I would probably have gone to art school and been a painter or illustrator. My natural inclination has always been visual and my descriptions pictorial. This fundamental artistic drive keeps on expressing itself, often with humour and ambivalence, and sometimes with a dark side. An odd illustrative impulse manifests itself, often at Christmas!
Gieves & Hawkes ~ 12 Days of Christmas
Sometimes I make things extremely difficult for myself. I had what I thought was a brilliant idea for the 12 Days of Christmas for my long-term client, the Savile Row tailors Gieves & Hawkes. They had loved my ‘Christmas Maid to Measure’ (above). What I hadn’t really thought about was the fact that I’d committed myself not to one illustration but twelve.
Christmas Cards
Many of my themes tend to be metamorphic – a turkey turning into a fat fairy, a fat fairy turning into Super Santa etc. These become a series of cards from one year to another. In 2015 I became Master of the Art Workers’ Guild which inspired the theme for the Christmas card that year, of me metamorphosing from a turkey to a Master!
Birthday Cards
Pencil Portraits
Cartoons for Gieves & Hawkes
I was commissioned to produce a series of cartoons for Gieves & Hawkes which hang in their fitting rooms in stores around the world. I often wonder what customers overseas would have made of the puns!
