The Creative Process

The initial part of making a picture is deciding on the subject matter for a battle or a riot and doing some research. I spend time gathering information about clothes, armour, architecture and weapons leading up to starting a picture. This is one of the most fascinating parts of the process. I find most of these images in old books and I love hunting them down. My favourite second-hand bookshops in Bristol are Dreadnought Books on St George's Road, the Oxfam Bookshop on Park Street and the Amnesty International Bookshop on Gloucester Road.

After lots of reading and consulting friends and colleagues about my ideas, I start to draw figures with pencil and then I arrange them together, before inking them with pigment marker when the composition is complete. These line drawings are scanned and turned into digital files, which I colour using Photoshop.

Since initially just producing Giclee prints I have gone on to produce A5 greetings cards, A4 sticker sheets and jigsaw puzzles. I will mostly be designing new battles for a series of Jigsaw puzzles in 2023. I am also creating a series of 15 knight illustrations for a book to show how effigies demonstrate the development of armour over a 400 year period. These pictures will be full colour and will also be available as A4 and A3 prints towards the end of 2023.

In 2018 my Queen Square riot picture one a category for the Bristol Pound competition and the image was printed on the £1 Bristol Pound note. I have a small stash of these to show people as they are no longer in circulation...