Cultivating spaces for extraordinary artists
Phill Evans
Phill Evans Drawing has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember but it has been the centre of my professional world since I graduated from the North Wales School of Art & Design in 2008 (at the tender age of 42.) Being a tad older than my student peers my influences came from a different era than theirs. 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.
In my illustrative work I bring a traditional type of draughtsmanship to a predominantly digital execustion (Adobe Photoshop is my tool of first choice although I also use Adobe Illustrator and Corel Painter.) I find that the ability to layer photographic textures into a hand drawn image allows me to develop traditional looking images with a contemporary twist. Working digitally also allows me to ocompensate for 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. So all’s well that ends well, eh?
I am currently undertaking an MA in Design Practice at Glyndwr University, Wrexham, Wales and developing an Extreme Colouring Book For Extreme Colourists using a doodling technique I developed as a warm up exercise when MS makes my hands a little stiff.