Russ McPherson
artist & illustrator

I started out producing freelance visualisations and exhibition stands for the display trade, although I have always created comic strips and cartoons. 

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I produced my first small-press comics zine as a student and sold it on the streets of south-west London.

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My comic strips and cartoons have appeared in a variety of alternative comix anthologies, such as Freak, Idiot, Northern Lightz, Wasted and The End Is Nigh but have also been featured in some more mainstream magazines like JUNO.

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Life events led to me abandoning comics for a time in favour of working part-time as a bookseller and becoming an active in the peace movement. I continued to work on private commissions during this time, with a particular fondness for pen & ink portraiture, and have also run cartooning workshops on a few occasions.

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During this time my interest in painting continued to evolve, favouring the "quick" mediums of acrylics and watercolours.

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Below you will find a link to my current online shop where you can own a piece of my work for yourself in whatever form you prefer.

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http://www.redbubble.com/people/russmcp​

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If you have a specific project in mind, feel free to email me with a brief description of your idea:

russellmcpherson@hotmail.co.uk

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My Journey Back to an Authentic Art

Perhaps it began with Photoshop's shift to a subscription-based model. Although I had mastered some elements of digital colouring, and achieved some nice results, for an artist who has mostly produced work on a freelance basis, with haphazard invoice schedules, the idea of not owning a physical copy of a piece of software that I had bought and paid for horrified me. Imagine paying a subscription for your hammer, drill or paintbrushes!

Combine this with the "same-ness" and lack of unique artistic style of a great deal of AI art (as nice as the results can be), led me on a journey towards finding out just what it is about individual pieces of artwork (whether they are full colour or black and white, painted or drawn) that creates a feeling of authenticity and uniqueness.

That is why all of the work you see on here exists in physical space. They are, at the end of the day, all objects that can be owned and cherished by someone, just as I cherish the framed landscape drawings of my late great-uncle.

I use this website and social media as a public online gallery people can use to view my work, or make contact with any ideas they need help realising. That is currently the greatest strength of the digital world to me.