My Design Process

My work has always been focused on illustration, no matter what the inspiration has been and there has been a lot! The focus has always been to translate the inspiration in an illustrative way.

The mediums I use have changed and developed over time and I have definitely become more confident in trialling new things, up until working in London I was absolutely terrified of watercolours. They can be so unpredictable and that was my worst nightmare. I stuck to pencil and pen and at a push a watercolour wash and pen on top. During my time in London my boss taught me how to use watercolours properly and this is something I will always be grateful for it was the silver lining in the storm of what my London experience was. 

When I moved to the highlands the experiments continued even more, I began hiking and sketching outdoors and trailing different mediums such as gouache painting and loosening up my style. I felt so free and creative. 

When I started Discover and Draw my design progress was pretty simple and still is to an extent, I would try something new up here such as climbing and then the inspiration would come. I have dipped into climbing a few times with Aidan in fact I did it quite a lot at university whilst I was in Bournemouth and Aidan was in Swanage, but then it was never an inspiration just something fun to do on the weekend. It became a business when I moved here as the more I did and more people I met, the more I realised how big of a gap in the market there was for gifts for people who did these sports / enjoyed the outdoors and in particular the mountains. This is when Discover and Draw began.

Lets climb was my first collection and has been reworked 3 / 4 times since I initially designed it in 2019. I think its important to always look and evaluate your work and if you are continuing to practice and develop your work the likelihood  is that you're going to be getting better and better each time so there is no harm in going back and redoing the designs if you think you can update them to a better standard. It is also really cool to look back and see the direct development you have made.

Here's an example below :