Happy Creative 2016

2015 was a good year creatively, I pushed my illustrations and drawings last year, much of which was helped by reading a self-help book at the start of the Year.

Choose Yourself written by James Altucher, The book put forward many ideas on how to be more productive one of which was to write down 10 ideas a day, which I have adopted. Writing down 10 ideas day helped strengthen the way I thought up ideas, some ideas worked really well and others were cannon fodder.

I also travelled much more last year, if you follow my work, you will know I draw maps, for commercial clients as well as a lot of personal work. I started a personal project where I would pick a European city and go on a day trip to that city. The places I have travelled to include, Venice, Budapest, Berlin, Barga, Copenhagen, Dublin, and Basel, for each city I drew a map in my Moleskine sketchbook as well as detailed notes and drawings of places, people and things I had seen during the trip.

2014 and 2013 were difficult years for me creatively and personally, I had a lot of challenges to overcome personally such as relationships and creativity. The key thing which turned much of my challenges around was focusing on my creativity. I focused on my strengths which were drawing, I focused on drawing every day, once I found my rhythm which was drawing maps. I started to gain interest which translated into commissions, Clients such as San Miguel, Citroen and Crabtree and Evelyn to name but a few.

I believe in not having your eggs all in one basket, and I have since been working on other projects, I have been developing a range of canvas tote bags which I have had an interest in since I had written a book about them titles The Tote Bag Book which was published in 2011 by Laurence King. I have taken up an interest in ceramics, which I am working on to create some new work with a view to selling, my other creative outlets include screen printing and another illustration style which is similar to paper quilling, created digitally.

I have high hopes for 2016, which include developing the work I have been creating during 2015 as well as thinking up new ideas and work.