I was born in the summer of 1979 in Harrow, North West London.
The earliest memories I have, are of a really warm summer, the smell of incense and oranges, watching ‘Sesame Street’ and playing on the swings
in the park trying to get as high as possible, trying to fly in the sky…

I always enjoyed drawing, painting and making things, so, it really wasn’t that difficult to wow everybody in my new primary school class with my drawings. Inadvertently stealing the mantle of the class’s current ‘superstar artist’ too. I loved story time, and I thoroughly enjoyed being able to read. My most favourite book was, and still is, Judith Kerr’s ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. The idea was crazy, but ever so fun. I kinda always wished that a tiger would come to our house for tea, but no tiger ever did!

After completing high school (where I got told off a lot in History for drawing in my note books), I then attended a foundation degree at Camberwell College of Arts. After this, I enrolled at the University of Westminster to undertake a degree in Illustration. It was here that I was exposed to Storyboarding, film and the fun that is illustration, specifically, illustrating for children.

After graduating in 2002 and having a passion for film, I worked as a DVD Sales assistant, and a freelance Storyboard Artist in the film industry. At the same time, my inner kid started to talk to me, and it was then that I really began to see if I could break into Children’s picture books. I then went on to work as a Bookseller at Borders for three years. This was fun and I managed to meet many different types of people, and would often, unbeknown to management, spend much time hidden in the children’s picture book department, reading many a picture book, such as the rather cool ‘The Fantastic Mr. Wani’, by Kanako Usui, before being grabbed by a customer.
Or two.

So, right now, at 30, I am in the process of trying to publish my own picture book, ‘Clement’s Dream’. This is about a wee monster who dreams of flying and, eventually, does. He has a lot of passion about his dream and it is something I’d love for children to understand-that we must follow our dreams, no matter how big they are.

I illustrate using a dip pen and use Dr. Ph. Martin’s Radiant concentrated watercolours.

My influences are:

Peter Sellers in ‘The Pink Panther’ movies, The Beano, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Henson and the Muppets, Kandinksy, Jack Kirby, my mum-Mina and my Scottish grandfather, Harry.

‘Clement’s Dream’ also has a blogspot that can be checked out here:

http://clementsdream.wordpress.com/

Well, cool, thanks for reading and hope you enjoy the work!

Rikin