I’ve illustrated several full colour integrated fiction books as well as Spud Goes Green (Egmont) which won a Blue Peter Best Book of Facts award in 2005 and The Covers of My Book Are Too Far Apart (Barrington Stoke) which made the short list for the Independent Bookshop Week Picture Book award and was also nominated for the Kate Greenaway.

I’m happy working in either a bright palette for young fiction or more muted tones and am currently working on three picture book ideas.

Please look at my sketchbook pages for other examples.

I’ve illustrated many series in black and white including The War Diaries of Alistair Fury (Random House) Yuck (Simon and Schuster), Hank Zipzer (Walker), Superhero School (Bloomsbury) and Undead Ed (Hodder) as well as many poetry and joke books.

I’m comfortable working in a variety of visual languages depending on the subject and age range.

I’ve always kept notebooks and sketchbooks and particularly with the MA, these have become a valuable source of thought gathering and experimentation. I like to explore different visual directions and am keen to develop some of these into larger bodies of work. To see more updates on these pages please click on the Instagram link at the foot of the main menu.

As a designer I’ve designed many integrated fiction insides. I worked closely with Cressida Cowell on the interiors of How to Speak Dragonese, Chris Mould (Pirates ‘n’ Pistols and the Mortimer Keene series) and Neal Layton’s Tony Spears.

I frequently designed books that I illustrated including The War Diaries of Alistair Fury (Random House), Superhero School (Bloomsbury), Undead Ed (Hodder Children’s) and Hank Zipzer (Walker) as well as a series of joke books for Andersen Press and the popular Mitch Symons books of facts for Random House.

The following spreads I illustrated for the children’s football magazine Kickaround. The brief came in the form of the text in a Word doc. I designed and roughed out the layout, working with the Art Director before taking it to final art usually within 10 days.

I wrote and illustrated a full page strip for the kid’s magazine Kickaround, usually going from concept to art in a week. This tied in well with my research on my Masters into sequential narrative. I’m currently working on a young fiction project with a mix of prose and sequential images.

In 2019 I graduated with a Distinction in Authorial Illustration, a Masters degree at Falmouth University. The course was very self led and sought to explore the role of illustrator as author and creator rather than simply one who responds to briefs.

My research took me into Heideggerian philosophy, Camus, Beckett, Wittgenstein and the exploration of the human condition. Alongside this I found my work and creativity completely reinvigorated as I learned to simply play again.

I produced two critical publications, one on the slowing down of time in sequential narratives and film, the author on the autographical self in comics. As I result I am looking at further research opportunities.

The discovery of the sequential narrative was a pot of gold moment. A genre that seemed to be perfect for me with the balance of words and image. After the exploratory newspaper, Thrown, I produced the 176 graphic narrative Afloat as my final project. I’m currently working on a similar project connected to mental health.

In 2019 I self published a 176pp graphic narrative, Afloat, as my final MA project. The book covers the two years when tried to keep my mum afloat after she was diagnosed with Dementia.

I’ve had some very positive feedback from Penn State Uni who run a graphic medicine programme with their Medical undergrads (the use of graphic literature in the patient/medical discourse) and the Dementia and Alzheimer’s community in the UK, although the message of the book was for anyone dealing with loss.

I’ve just reprinted and the book is available through my shop.

I started designing book covers in 1990 working in religious publishing before moving to children’s books in 2000. I took over the maternity cover the Deputy Art Director at Random House Children’s (Transworld Division) from 2001 to 2003. From 2004 to 2014 I freelanced 2-3 days a week in house at Hodder Children’s books working across all their imprints.

I’ve worked across all ages ranges and have a particular feel for young fiction titles.

The word cartoon is a very loaded one and sadly seen as the lowest of art forms although with the current political discourse it does seem to be seeing a revival. At the root of my work is a desire to communicate complex ideas with simple lines and text. I’ve had cartoons published in Private Eye but also produced many thousands for children’s books over the years.

Panelled cartoons have a unique visual language which I try to keep separate from my other illustration work.

With a background in stand up (I’m tempted to use the ‘no one is laughing now’ line by Bob Monkhouse!) I’m more than happy to make a fool of myself.

I’ve run workshops at Luton Libraries on Graphic Storytelling as well as schools workshops on the basics of telling a story (the life as story and understanding of narrative structure dovetailed in nicely with my Masters research). I also ran drawing workshops for the Luton Hoo Book Festival.

I’ve also run storytelling with adult groups and in 2019 was invited to speak the the Illustrating Mental Health Symposium at Worcester University.