Henryk Szor

THE START

I am a freelance digital illustrator and lecturer based in Cornwall, UK.  Way back in early 2000 I sent a couple of my digital drawings off to Computer Arts. Back then Computer Arts magazine was the ‘big deal’ when it came to anything creative and digital. They had a section in the back pages where budding digital artist could send in examples of their work, in the vain hope of having it published. You could imagine my surprise and delight when a journalist from Computer Arts telephoned me and asked if they could do a two-page spread about me and my work. After the magazine (May 2000 edition) was published I was contacted by a few art agents… and so my fledgling illustrating career began.

 

THE AGENT YEARS

It was wonderful having an agent…even the 30% commission wasn’t too painful when they negotiated decent prices for your work… and how fantastic it was to have someone who knew what they were doing when it came to handling image licensing issues. Initially my work was quite varied…advertising…editorial…children’s books and greetings cards. I illustrated children’s books for the TV series Butt Ugly Martians, I created images for the BBC’s CBeebies learning together books and illustrated many editorial pieces for Future Publications tech magazines. However, as time went by, publishers started to realise that I had a bit of a talent for interpreting jokes and bringing them to life in humourous greetings cards.

 

THE TEACHING YEARS

During this time I also started teaching evening classes in Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and QuarkXpress at Stoke on Trent College. I soon progressed to teaching on their BTEC Art, Media and A Level courses. I really enjoyed the teaching and went on to complete my Cert Ed at Manchester Met University in Adult, HE and Further Education teaching, and have since taught in various colleges throughout the North West and Central England such as South Cheshire College, South Manchester College and Stafford College.

 

THE PUBLISHING YEARS

By this time my agent and I had parted company and I was predominantly working for a few greetings card publishers. I was illustrating for  a publisher called Rainbow Cards when I was approached by a wonderful chap called Mike Whitehouse who said he liked my work and asked if I would like to set up a publishing company with him. Mike was a 'big cheese' in the greetings cards industry and the original founder of Rainbow Cards...before he retired!. He missed the publishing industry, and we decided to set up Funny Cards Ltd together. We created a number of great ranges totalling a 150 card designs and sold these into independent retailers and also large multiples such as Tesco, Asda and Wilkos.

 

THE WAYWARD YEARS

We ran Funny Cards for four years then Mike became seriously ill. He was the driving force behind the business and we eventually sold Funny Cards Ltd. and the rights to the card ranges to another publisher. Shortly after Mike sadly passed away.  I concentrated on my teaching and also helping my wife with her business. I went on to teach apprenticeships in print and design and even guest lectured at Staffordshire University on their Comic Art Degree Course. Throughout these times I still freelanced as a greetings card artist and steadily built up a reputation with publishers such as Card Connection, Emotional Rescue, Quitting Hollywood and others as a reliable greetings card illustrator.

 

THE CORNWALL YEARS

During this time I was also doing some part time teaching and assessing with print and design apprentices for Plymouth College of Art when they asked me if I would consider relocating to the South West to become the full time manager of their Creative Industries Apprenticeship programme. After my move to Cornwall I still continued freelancing as an illustrator and picking up commissions from publishers. Then after three years the Art College decided to concentrate on their HE provision and consequently closed down their highly successful, award winning apprenticeship programme... and I moved onto teach part time at South Devon College. 

 

DIGITAL PAINTING CLASSES.

It was about this time that I discovered the joy of painting on the iPad. More of my illustrations are now sketched and created using my iPad. I started to realise the potential of this as a fabulous art medium and admired the work of artists such as David Hockney who were picking up the iPad and creating stunning digital images. 

 

I now teach classes in iPad / tablet digital painting based on apps such as Procreate that hopefully inspire people of all ages and abilities to pick up their iPads and tablets and paint and create wonderful digital paintings. I am based on the Cornwall Devon boarder and if you are interested in my digital painting classes then please use the contact page to drop me a line. I am happy to consider delivering my classes to small groups at your art clubs and venues.