CONNOR ANNAL

We did an interview with Illustration student Connor Annal:

-Tell us a bit about yourself?

Ok; so, I’m an 18 year old student who knows what he loves, I love drawing, and I love art, especially new art, I love how creative minds are working these days, theres so much interesting and to be honest, fascinating stuff out there. I love people who are passionate about what they do, it inspires me to do more and be more, I’m so happy about the direction I’m headed, feels good man.

-Were you one of those kids who could sit with a pad of paper and some colouring crayons for hours on end or did your love for drawing come later on?

I always loved drawing as a kid, but this mega mega passion for what I’ve been doing definatley came about early last year, when I discovered all these amazing artists that I’ll tell you about right below;

-Tell us about your main inspirations and favourite artists

There are so many man, I’m inspired by a hell of a lot of stuff, It could just be some colours I see, maybe some pattern on some clothes or something like that, But I do look at a LOT, and I mean a LOT of art in my spare time, I follow some really cool blogs that I’d definitely recommend to every human being out there, there’s a massive list of them down the side of my blog; help yourselves. As to artists I’m inspired by theres a whole bunch of them too; My love for illustration multiplied by a million in the first year of college when we were given the fashion illustration project and I discovered the genius of Mike Perry, I remember seeing his website and spending absolutely ages just looking at every single picture and every single page, It was like an overdose of inspiration.
However that was just the starting point, I have you to thank for this next part Max, Flickr; Ever since I made a flickr and searched ‘illustration’ or whatnot, there have been floods of amazing and really, truly inspiring artists that I have found and really connected with, of course the best part of flickr is that I’ve made contact with quite a few of them, and I’d recommend it to any aspiring creative, it’s such a buzz.
As I say there have a been a lot of really amazing artists whose work has really captivated me, and to mention but a few of my favourites, they would be; Kyle Pellet, Gianluigi Rivasi, Andy J Miller, Davide Bignotti, Will Bryant, Alyssa Duhe, Daniel Cantrell, Maxime Francout, there are so so many, and so many of them have given me really great feedback, It’s such a great feeling to hear what real artists think about your stuff! However I think I’ve left out possibly the MOST important people out that have inspired me, and thats you lot, the people I’m surrounded by every day, its great to have such creative people as friends, and I love how we can chat about art and check out blogs with common interests, its brilliant, so heads up to Max Tomlinson, Rory Cole, Curtis Hylton, Sanaa Hamid, and all the really creative people in my classes who are great at what they do but I don’t speak to enough to mention them here!

- Every time I see you working you either have a pen in your hand or you going square eye’d on photoshop, what drives you to keep going?

I’m not sure what it is man, But when I’m drawing away it’s like I’m possessed, I can sit down and do something for like five hours and still not be bored, It’s happened before, it sounds crazy I know, even to me, but the time literally flies by and its so nice watching a piece come together, and of course the ultimate kick is sticking the final product up on the internet or handing it out for all to see, that’s the feeling I live for.

- You always tell me about a bunch of crazy ideas going on in your head, tell us about something new you’re working on?

I guess I do ha! my brain is always full of stuff I could be doing, it’s manic in there, but yes, right now I’m starting up a new project for myself in the shape of a zine! the zine will be called MAGIK and will be almost like a happy Blair Witch Project in zine form, but from a more child like, naive, point of view, I really want to take some mystifying and unusual photographs, that perhaps prehistoric n00bz would mistake for magic, this most definitely covers the crazy criteria, seeing as as we speak my disposable camera is sitting in the bottom of my freezer, and it has been for some hours now, I’m leaving it there till the morning and I’ll take some pictures with it when the chemicals are frozen to see what rad colours and effects I can squeeze out of that thing.

-You’re coming to the end of a two year Art & Design course, what plans do you have for the future other than a well deserved break?

Well being accepted by The Arts University College at Bournemouth for their Illustration course has really made my year, since I saw that place it has truly been my dream to go there, It’s so me. While I’m there hopefully my work will grow with me, and I’ll keep up what I’m doing now, I can imagine I’ll be meeting some awesome like-minded people and burning the candle at both ends! Hopefully me and you will keep in touch for future collaborations when we are all famous art-men and art-womenz

Thanks for the banner you designed us and finally where can we see more of your work?

It was a pleasure mate, I’m really pleased with it, and you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve been scribbling all over the internet;
You can check my
Flickr,

Blog,

or my Cargo,

Thanks man.