I recently attended The Dots Illustration Portfolio Masterclass over at the Royal Academy of Arts. From a total of 350 illustrators who applied, only 40 were selected and invited to take part in the event to meet the industry professionals.

I arrived at the Royal Academy a good half hour early to settle into my surroundings and finish a little preparation. Due to the stereotypical reclusive nature of artists, I had a fear that this could easily be one of those awkward ‘creative strangers in a room’ situations. However, anyone who knows me, knows that I quite like a chat. Me and a couple of fellow illustrators had soon formed a bit of a conversation triangle. We went from a triangle to a hexagon in a matter of minutes!

The portfolio sessions are described as “creative speed dating”, I had a certain amount of time with each mentor and then moved on to the next. The time element added a sense of urgency, but also kept things moving along nicely. It only caught me out once and resulted in me not being able to speak to Alex Trimmer from Folio. However, Alex was great about it and told me to give him a call the next day to discuss my work in more depth. I followed this up and gained some really helpful advice about commissioning trends and where my style sits within the industry.

Another highlight for me was my chat with Charlie Sells from Jelly London. Charlie was very friendly and easy to get along with, whilst maintaining a true honesty in her advice.

The session ended with handfuls of salted popcorn, washed down with a couple of beers, all supplied by The Dots wonderful team. After a spell of business card swapping and a little geeking out over pens, creative suite and processes, everyone began to get ushered out of the venue. I felt the evening ended a little prematurely, but there’s only so long you can have that many creatives fuelled by free beer in such a beautiful venue surrounded by priceless artwork.

All in all I had a great time at The Dots Illustration Portfolio Masterclass. I gained some valuable insight into commissioning and heard some reaffirming comments about my illustration work. A big thanks to all the mentors, The Dots team and all the illustrators I had the pleasure of meeting.

If you’re intrigued to see what I was showing at the session, all the illustrations can be found in my Projects section.

East Street Arts invited me to create some striking visuals for their Art Hostel crowd funding campaign. The goal was to raise £5,000 for Leeds’ first ever social enterprise Art Hostel.

The project involved me producing hand-drawn lettering elements for the video, as well as painting a selection of props to be used on set. I even did a little bit of acting… The crowd funding campaign was a huge success and we managed to raise more than the £5000 goal.

You can enjoy the successful crowd funding video below:

After the crowd funding campaign, I was invited by East Street Arts to write an article about my experience working on the project. ‘Working on the Art Hostel Video’ can be read on the East Street Arts website.

“Time was of the essence. We had deadlines to meet and as any creative knows, deadlines are a package deal with late nights in the studio included.”

On Saturday night I was gliding through my Twitter feed to keep my brain full to the brim of micro facts… As I swiped away, I saw a very intriguing tweet from Print Club London. They were offering two free places on their screen printing workshop the next day.

I had been locked away in my studio working on my MF DOOM Typog-RAP-hy series and had begun to develop a mild case of cabin fever. I had also been meaning to go down to Print Club London at some point to find out a little more about how they operate. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, so I responded to the tweet… Later that evening I got a message from the Print Club saying that they had given away the two places but wanted me to go along too because they liked the work I was doing.

“You are immediately hit with the smell of ink and a wave of creativity comes over you.”

If you’ve never entered a screen print studio, it’s quite an amazing feeling. You are immediately hit with the smell of ink and a wave of creativity comes over you. You scan the room taking in all the mechanical machinery that makes the print process such a romantic one. For me the feeling is best described as one of pure motivation and inspiration to just create.

All in all the workshop was a great refresher course for myself and jogged my memory a little getting me ready for when I take my next series to print. The friendly and fun creative atmosphere really made this workshop a pleasure, instead of one of those awkward ones where you are not quite sure how you feel about going back after lunch. I had a great day and by the end of it I had a limited run of prints with a two colour gradient on a ‘Smooth Southbank’ stock, which subsequently sold out within a few days of landing in my online shop!

Thanks to all the technicians at Print Club London and a pleasure to meet everyone I met that day.

After a good month of preparation, The London Illustration Fair 2014 finally exploded into the Hoxton arches and seemed to be over all too quickly! The fair ran for 3 days over the weekend and saw huge numbers through the doors (Saturday was absolutely manic). Most of the illustrators (including myself) spent most of their time at their stalls, but we did all get to meet each other and geek out about all things illustration (As well as doing print swaps at the end of the show)

“I felt truly honoured over the weekend, when people told me that my work was an inspiration to them.”

Highlights for me included being interviewed by a young journalist student by the name of Max Gayler who had a very natural interview technique which made him a pleasure to talk to. I also quite like a talk, so it is no surprise that over the weekend I had chats with literally hundreds of people. Many of these were illustration students/practitioners asking advice about being a freelancer. I felt truly honoured over the weekend, when people told me that my work was an inspiration to them.

However, after all that and more, my main highlight has to have been the moment I was interviewed by a Turkish news channel. Who knows if I will ever see that footage, but hopefully I might get a few fans of my work from Turkey! A big thanks to all the organisers of the event and all the people who came down to visit. Also, lovely to meet so many amazing illustrators all working hard at what they love.

I exhibited and sold a range of different work, including pieces from my Typog-RAP-hy series, Common Homonyms and also some original Mayan Skull Wizard paintings on buckram book covers.

After a successful artistic proposal to Outlook Festival 2014, I was selected as one of the artists who would paint site art for the venue before the festival started. I was given a good sized wall which was located on the main gate between the campsite and the festival entrance.

The painting was a mix of both playful lettering and figures with subtle references to Croatian culture. The characters themselves were loosely based on Zvoncari, Croatian bell ringers who ward off evil spirits.

I had great fun working alongside the Outlook Festival art team and thanks to everyone who helped me out with logistics and made my stay “comfortable”. When I wasn’t busy painting I was soaking up the beautiful sites, sipping on a little bit of rum and listening to some amazing music.

Like most Hip-Hop fans I’ve been listening to the beats of DJ Premier for a long time now. That’s why it felt great to finally see him perform live and the fact that it was a result of my own hard work made it even sweeter. Other highlights for me included seeing Action Bronson’s electric performance, classic UK Hip-Hop from Sonnyjim and a feel good beach performance by The Mouse Outfit.