As a newly signed illustrator with The Drawing Arm, what fuels your creative passion and motivation? Are there specific themes, experiences, or artists that inspire your work, and how do you navigate the balance between personal expression and client demands in your illustrations?
I'm fuelled by the opportunity to create in general. Whether it's story focussed, character driven or an overarching spectacular visual concept, it's about having the opportunity to develop something new from scratch, in any medium. I'm definitely inspired by nature and good design, but I would say my main inspiration is storytelling. Stories provided an opportunity to communicate something and doing it through illustration and animation is an expressive and unrestricted way to do it. Bold, near-primary colours, overlays and thick but detailed linework is how I like to work. This combined with a bit of humour and mystery.
There's too many artists to list but I've definitely been influenced by greats like Walt Disney's original 9 old men of animation and their character work as well as Dali's surrealism. For more modern illustrator legends - Tori-Jay Mordey, Guy Shield, Phoebe Paradise, Brolga and Max Ulichney.
When it comes to the balance or my artform and client demands, it's a balance, but not a difficult one. Each brief is a starting point for creativity. How I interpret the creative voice forward of the brief is up to me and I have the opportunity to work with the client to create a useful piece of art. When I work with clients, they come to me because of what I'm capable of and what I can create and a relationship of trust will achieve the result we're both looking for..
Reflecting on your journey as an illustrator, could you share a memorable experience from your best illustration gig to date? What made it stand out, and how did it contribute to your growth as an artist?
There are quite a few memorable experiences and so many jobs over the years that there's a lot to count and probably some I'm forgetting. Some general highlights would be live graphic recording at a zoo in Al Ain in the Middle Eastern desert, designing a band t-shirt for Hamish and Andy and a large-scale digital mural that covered the walls of a popular supermarket. In addition to these key projects, partnering with the Brisbane Powerhouse gave me the opportunity to test and build my skills greatly. In a series of projects I created illustrated cover guides, huge animated projections on their outdoor walls, a series of Powerhouse Pets lit up the pathway along the Brisbane river with unconventional pets and much more. This showed me the importance of good, trusting relationships, creative exploration and engaging a broad audience.
Reflecting on your journey as an illustrator, could you share a memorable experience from your best illustration gig to date? What made it stand out, and how did it contribute to your growth as an artist?
There are quite a few memorable experiences and so many jobs over the years that there's a lot to count and probably some I'm forgetting. Some general highlights would be live graphic recording at a zoo in Al Ain in the Middle Eastern desert, designing a band t-shirt for Hamish and Andy and a large-scale digital mural that covered the walls of a popular supermarket. In addition to these key projects, partnering with the Brisbane Powerhouse gave me the opportunity to test and build my skills greatly. In a series of projects I created illustrated cover guides, huge animated projections on their outdoor walls, a series of Powerhouse Pets lit up the pathway along the Brisbane river with unconventional pets and much more. This showed me the importance of good, trusting relationships, creative exploration and engaging a broad audience.
