Stay in the know with my illustration news from shop updates, new projects and announcements, along with tips and tricks of the freelance illustration trade I’ve learnt along the way!
Last month Mila Plants opened another shop in Bristol in the new SPARKS building. This replaced the old closed Marks and Spencers in Broadmead and has been repurposed into a vibrant hub of sustainability and creativity, of which I have stocked some of my most plant-y illustration prints!
If you’re around in the centre of Bristol, be sure to check it out! I’ve got framed and unframed options from A4 to A2 available.
In October 2022 I was approached by Joe Bourne, a Creative Communications Research Fellow from Lancaster University, and Dr Ola Michalec, a social scientist based at University of Bristol. They were looking for artists to respond to research on the future of our energy provision and management as part of the Power 2 project from PETRAS.
This project was about generating artistic responses to research exploring human dimensions of digital energy transformation. In simpler terms, basically looking at how the current, and potential future, of energy generation and consumption makes us feel!
They were on the look out for 4 artists to fulfil 4 briefs. I was very much drawn to the first brief, ‘The Home Control Room’ as it seemed to fit in nicely with my style of drawing. This brief involved exploring the potential reality of taking energy sourcing and usage into the hands of everyday consumers, with a hint at the likely issues that might arise with doing this. I choose to demonstrate this with a chaotic lounge in a hypothetical house share, a scene that is likely to resonate with most of us in some way or another.
In a world where we are all looking for more control on our energy… screens, dials, buttons and interfaces have crept into the home to such a degree that our homes have started to look more like power station control rooms than living spaces. Neglected houseplants compete for attention with smart energy displays; dirty dishes obscure warning lights and the renters’ different approaches to home-labour show through their relationships with these technologies.
The image above shows my final illustration response to the brief, and on Friday I got the opportunity to present my final piece to a small audience at the ‘Electric Feels’ event, hosted in Cafe Kino on Stokes Croft. It was such an amazing experience to be involved in, huge thank you to PETRAS for making it possible. For more info on the project, visit: https://petras-iot.org/update/electric-feels/
I’m super stoked to share that a bunch of my illustrations are now available as glicée prints up to A1 with National Park Print Shop, alongside lots of other amazing nature themed artworks!!! 🌿
This is super exciting for me because, the vast majority of my work was designed to be printed as big as possible, in order to capture all the details, and I currently don’t have the capacity to do this at home, in terms of printing but also storing and framing large artworks. So when I saw the opportunity arise to partner with National Park Print Shop, I jumped at it!
For now we’ve stocked the full Tonal Tropics collection, all of Urban Eden, and 4 of the most popular designs from Animal Kingdom. Check out my page on the website to see all 12 available prints. There’s a choice of black, white and wooden frames options too!
