Simon graduated form the University of Wales, Newport with a qualification in Film,TV and Animation and a degree in illustration. His main tutors in this time were the award winning animator and director Joanna Quinn and the illustrators Sue Shields and Terry Ilot.
After graduating Simon worked in the Animation industry animating on the Oscar® nominated 'Famous Fred’ & ‘The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ both directed by Joanna Quinn.
I have also worked as an Animation Director and Storyboard Artist on multiple children's television series including ‘Angelina Ballerina’, ‘Kipper the Dog’, ‘Charlie & Lola’, ‘Erky Perky’ and ‘CJ the DJ’. Most recently I was the storyboard supervisor on ‘Spongo, Fuzz and Jalapena’ a new animated series for the ABC.
I have also been lucky enough to work for Scholastic Australia and so far illustrated twelve books for the 3-7 year old age range including ’10 Hooting Owls and ‘I want a hippopotamus for Christmas’. You can see these on my books page.
I have also illustrated for children's television magazines, cd music covers and educational and mental health initiatives for both children and adults.
My idea for CheekyBucket came from a desire to produce art for children that has a different approach to the simplistic designs with flat colours and whimsical images that are predominantly available for children’s walls. Images that weren’t readily available when searching for something for my children's bedrooms. So I set out to produce designs that are attractive to children, but also have a traditional artistic feel.
Traditional in the first steps of their creation, each character is designed on paper with a pencil before hand painting using premier painting software, Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop.
Traditional in the first steps of their creation, each character is designed on paper with a pencil before hand painting using premier painting software, Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop.
CheekyBucket images were originally designed to be bigger than the average children's wall art. The original canvases were just under a metre in length and 30 cm tall, but after much research these large scale images have been reduced in size to fit neatly into pre-made frames. Though if you do want a big canvas please check out our Custom Canvas page and then send us an email with your requirements.
Simon is currently working on new designs for CheekyBucket and will soon be back in the animation industry too.
Simon is currently working on new designs for CheekyBucket and will soon be back in the animation industry too.