Fratton Roads
I grew up in a house by Fratton Park in the 70s and 80s. If you know Pompey, you know what that means. Working class. No frills. No shortcuts. Saturday afternoons you'd hear the roar from the stadium, smell the burgers from the stands, feel the rumble of thousands of boots on concrete.
That's where this started. Not in some art school. Not with fancy materials. Just a kid with a pencil and too much time, drawing whatever was in front of him.
The Obsession
I've got Pure OCD. For most of my life I didn't know what to call it – just knew my brain wouldn't let things go until they were right. Every line. Every shadow. Every detail had to be perfect or it would eat at me.
Turns out that's not a curse when you're doing realism portraits. It's a superpower. The thing that made everything else harder made the art better. Forty-two years of channeling that obsession into graphite and pixels.
Graphite & Pixels
I work in two worlds – good old graphite pencil and digital. There's something about the scratch of lead on paper that never gets old. But digital lets me push things further, work cleaner, ship faster.
My work's sold in Australia, the USA, across the UK. Portraits that look back at you. Faces with weight and history. That's what realism is – not just copying what you see, but capturing what you feel when you look at someone.
Why Notebooks?
Simple. Sketchbooks these days are boring as hell.
Mass-produced. Generic covers. No soul. I wanted something that felt like it belonged in a workshop, not a gift shop. Something you'd actually want to pull out and use. Something with attitude.
So I made it myself. Laser-etched kraft covers. Custom layouts. The kind of notebook I wish I'd had for the last four decades. Urban Outlaw Supply isn't a pivot from art – it's an extension of it.