July 2, 2019

Adding signs of life to settings

Backgrounds give the illustrator a rich opportunity to tell stories using only pictures. It’s almost always what a child that notices first.

June 25, 2019

The sky isn’t blue

Once an artist has found the formula to capture reality, we get to move beyond it, and capture what imagine it could be, like when we were kids.

June 18, 2019

Pictures are for kids, right?

In an increasingly visual, connected world, why does visual literacy play second fiddle to words? Why is the path to literacy paved in language?

June 4, 2019

What is your story about?

Until I work out the relatable human need in an idea that I’ve had, my story is just a sequence of events, and not ‘about’ anything at all.

May 28, 2019

Optimising your life to encourage boredom

‘Avoiding boredom’ is something that we’re trained to achieve in a bid to be ‘more productive’. But it’s not until you permit yourself to be bored again that you truly see the power of it in helping you make more lateral and inventive connections, more often.

May 14, 2019

Time is an ingredient

To bake sourdough bread, you need four ingredients: Flour, Water, Culture, and Time. Time is as important to sourdough bread as the things you can feel and weigh. And if you want some fresh bread in the morning, you’ve got to plan for it, you’ve got to be preparing things a day or two in… Continue reading Time is an ingredient

May 3, 2019

Striving for imperfection

Humans watch other humans strive to do things perfectly because it’s rare that it will ever be perfect. Even the most awarded, respected, consistently performing master of their craft will, on occasion, have an off day.

April 23, 2019

Scales of success

What success looks like to one person is different to another person. So which scale should we all subscribe too? Or should we simply stop caring?