How I became an artist!

I am a 21 year old artist at the time of writing this, born in 2003, I have always had a passion for art. Although I am colourblind this does not directly challenge my black and grey work however can be a challenge when comparing certain colours. It was only until the first Covid lockdown of 2020 where I developed my art skills. During the pandemic my mum told me it would be a great idea to find a passion rather than playing my Xbox. After achieving an 7 in my GCSE art grade, equivalent to a high B, we thought it would be a great idea for me to potentially take my skills further. I jumped in and ordered some colour and charcoal pencils from Amazon alongside some a1 canvas’. Within months of creating portraits of my favourite artists and athletes I had the likes of footballing sensation Gareth Bale & London rapper AJ Tracey liking & sharing my posts to a collective following of over 50 million people. This rather rapidly built my profile following up through my social media’s primarily Instagram. Towards the end of the first lockdown I enjoyed this hobby so much and realised I was carving my own way into my very own business idea. To further develop my skills and earnings I found a tattoo apprenticeship at Monumental Ink who accepted me and trained me up for 6 months before I was tattooing on skin, a rather fast apprenticeship as my skills were developing so quickly. I took on black and grey realism pieces before my work grabbed hold of BBC news at the age of 18. After my tattoos and artwork was broadcasted, I suddenly found myself over 6 months booked up with clientele whilst still creating artwork at home. I then decided a year later I wanted to branch out further and I moved studios to Loveless tattoo lounge, Ardleigh, so I could remain closer to home and have a larger workspace for my passion. From there on, I created pieces of artwork of music artists Zara Larsson, Stormzy, the late DJ Avicii, and multiple films I have loved throughout my life specifically including Top Gun. In the coming months I successfully delivered my artwork to both Zara Larson and Avicii’s father, both in person, where my original Avicii piece is on the wall in the Avicii experience, Stockholm. My Stormzy artwork was then featured in a Louis Theroux documentary on BBC 1 where my name was rolled into the credits as well as features of my art in Stormzy’s home. In and amongst this period I was lucky enough to create and deliver to my favourite YouTube duo of Joe Weller and Elliot Crawford who also shared my posts. Fast forward 18 months and my artwork through multiple people landed in Tom Cruise’s hands. I was luckily enough to have a whole team arrange a personal meet and greet to spend some valuable time with Tom discussing all things art, films and where I can direct myself into the future which has brought me to where I am now….