About me

Welcome!

My name is Stirling and I am a self taught artist from Yorkshire in England. I specialise in mixed media portraits (including pet portraits) which I draw on various card sizes from credit card size up to A4, vinyl records, canvases and sketch covers. I use both graphite and coloured pencils, charcoal, pastels and paint. I mainly draw in grey scale. I am also an officially licensed sketch card artist for Topps/Fanatics.

I have a keen interest in body art and this is what started my art journey in late 2017. A very close friend of mine who is a tattoo artist inspired me to draw and motivated me to buy some basic art supplies and give it a go. I started out by drawing traditional tattoo flash, after a few months I got interested in the art style of Tim Burton which lead me down drawing people in the style of Tim Burton. I then ventured away from this style into book style portraits, I was looking at what direction to take my artwork before I saw a quote by Tim Burton which read 'Don't worry about how you should draw it. Just draw it the way you see it'. I then stopped worrying about how I should draw things and began to really look at the subject. Through trial and error plus some very long nights I began experimenting with my artwork. Challenging myself and taking me away from comfort zones progressing into the portraits you see today.

I like to find out a little about the person or animal I am drawing so I can really capture the soul of the subject and portray their character through my work. If am drawing a musician for example as I draw them I will listen to their music.

As I began my art journey I met some incredible artists who got me involved in drawing 3.5" by 2.5" sketch cards (about credit card size). I did a lot of trades with artists which pushed my limits, getting me to draw things I wouldn't usually draw. Trading with some amazing artists made me want to do better. All artwork is fantastic and anyone who wishes to create at any level is wonderful but as an artist you are always judging your work so being able to trade with artists made me want to improve to a level I was happy with.

I had a dream of doing sketch cards professionally one day and in 2019 this dream came true when I was invited by Upperdeck to draw official trading cards for Marvel. I also did a Star Wars set for Topps back in 2019. After a few years away from sketch cards, I am now back working on official projects for Topps and I am excited to share what projects I will be working on this year.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story and to take look at my work. I really appreciate your support.

Have a nice day.

Stirling