This page shows what I get up to in my spare time - including illustration, graphic design experiments and photography.
In my spare time I enjoy drawing and painting. Much of what I create is inspired by nature, art and music. All of the paintings inspired by nature have been copied from photos I have taken myself. I really enjoy drawing music art work, from bands such as Bring Me The Horizon and Iron Maiden. I sometimes get them printed onto t-shirts.
Some of the paintings I have done I have actually recreated on Photoshop – to create more art, specifically inspired by the style of Andy Warhol’s ‘The Marilyn Diptych’, which I actually saw when visiting Tate Modern in London, in the Summer of 2017.
I sometimes create graphical logos in my spare time too. I find circles are one of the best shapes to work with as there are no harsh edges or corners. Hence, why I used a circle for my own logo. I like creating shapes with circles and the negative space, particularly animals.
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I especially enjoy drawing animated characters from Japanese series’ such as Attack on Titan, Fairy Tail and Dragon Ball Z. I love how detailed
they are – especially with the colour and shading used, not one character without fabulous hair!
I like to create simpler pieces, when all you need is a pen and a ruler (and occasionally a circle stencil!). It takes time and patience, but is very satisfying when finished.
Some of the drawings I do are influenced by images I find in magazines and even for competitions. I enjoy using different materials in my pieces, for example newspaper and thread – I like the added texture and I find it can help with the ‘movement’.
Arts and crafts is another hobby – anything light and dainty enough that can be pierced or attached to a pin I love to make into earrings. Some of my favourite earrings are made from Iron Maiden’s ‘The Trooper’ beer bottle caps.
With the pencils I find to be low quality, I can always find a use for them, whether it’s to liven up a photo frame or to make a piece of art by attaching 257 individual pieces of pencil to a large canvas. All very satisfying projects to finish!
When I’m not creating art myself, I love to visit art galleries or inspiring building/ landmarks. In January 2017, I travelled to Barcelona and visited lots of different art galleries like Museu del Disseny de Barcelona. Here I saw so much colourful art, including a room full of hexagons – a shape I like to use within the geometric art! I also saw the Sagrada Familia and was able to see inside, so many colourful panes of glass casting large shapes on the ground emphasizing how bright the window colours really are. In the summer of 2017, I visited London's Tate Modern, I saw many pieces of geometric art including Victor Vasarely’s ‘Supernovae’, which helped to inspire me to create pieces similar to this.
Having owned a DSLR camera for a few years and been on a camera course on how to use it, I love taking photographs. My main focus in photography is close-ups of nature, specifically, plants and insects. I find many of these photo opportunities in either my garden or woodland areas.
One of my favourite places to visit is Switzerland – I love walking around the mountains taking photos as I go, plenty of flowers and landscapes to admire. And you never have to travel far to hear cow bells, along with their inquisitive owners! Again, I like to visit art galleries or museums whenever I can, so I can find really interesting installations that are really simple but make a small room seem huge.
Whilst studying at York St. John University, I used to enjoy the commute the most when walking over the River Ouse, the sunsets are so beautiful, especially when there are plenty of clouds in the sky and silhouettes made from all of the trees. Every so often I would see geese with their goslings wandering about near the Railway Station, posing every time someone with a camera walked past! On rare occasions I was surprised to see a steam engine at the station, I loved the way the steam was engulfing the tracks, and I managed to get plenty of photos!
