Flying Fish/Eeast Skianagh Original artwork

I live on the beautiful Isle of Man in a little house at the edge of Glen Elfin, surrounded by trees, perched on the slopes on North Barrule, and spend an irrational amount of time in my wooden studio with the cats watching birdies outside the window when I should be working.

I do actually possess a BA Hons degree in Multi Disciplinary Design, but not once has a client ever asked to see it. I have been a freelance illustrator since 1989 (yes that IS a long time) and have produced all manner of work for all manner of clients; including Manx National Heritage, Culture Vannin, Isle of Man Post Office, Fynoderre Distillery, Okells Ales, various banks, the BBC, big private commissions, teeny weeny tiny little commissions, book illustration, packaging design, character concept illustration, freeform organic celtic/Knox style lettering, cartoons and have even designed the interior of a supermarket.

Jobs are varied – one day doing technical reconstruction drawings of Viking longhouses (extremely interesting), the next day the inside of a nasal cavity (not quite so interesting). There’s been caricatures of ex-gangster bosses (scary), cartoon portraits of brides (even scarier) and lots and lots of hairy beasties from Manx folklore.

Favourite medium has to be pencil, it’s just the best for getting from imagination to paper without the brain getting in the way. I like to mess around with media that isn’t necessarily supposed to end up on paper, and generally use a mixture of pens, ink, markers, felt tips, coloured pencils, watercolour and whatever else is to hand. I also find I work particularly well with chocolate.

I have two erstwhile assistants, Skinny-cat (aka Shakti), who generally hogs the fire and sits on the chocolate; and WandaMeko, who bothers spiders and tests the theory of gravity with my pens.

Oh, and I also run and curate the Hodgson Loom Gallery at Laxey Woollen Mills, where you will find exhibitions by many of the Island’s extremely talented artists, sculptors, textile artists, ceramicists, photographers and more. If you haven’t been there, get yourselves down, it’s a treat.