Drawing has always been part of Phill's life, or at least as long as he can remember. It's only since 2008, at the tender age of 42 after graduating from the North Wales School of Art & Design however, that drawing and illustration has become the very centre of his professional world.
Being a little older than his peers at Art school, Phill's influences came from a different era than theirs. Phill said, "I grew up reading hand-me-down books illustrated by Arthur Rackham, John Tenniel and Randolph Caldecott. As a teenager I fell under the spell of Aubrey Beardsley at the same time as I began to appreciate contemporary and particularly comic book artists like John Buscema and David Lloyd. Manga and anime have passed me by and still leave me cold despite much urging by friends to explore their delights".
Influenced by his heroes, though working predominantly digitally, Phill tries to bring a traditional type of draughtsmanship to his work. He finds the ability to layer photographic textures into a hand drawn image allows me to develop traditional looking images with a contemporary twist. Phil shared that, "Working digitally also allows me to overcome any degrading of my drawing skills caused by multiple sclerosis, which is what disrupted my previous career and allowed me to retrain as an illustrator." See more of Phill's work here.
