Black background with the word 'NOÉMA' in white uppercase letters centered at the top.
a vintage portrait of a woman in a torn edged photo, with yellow pencil scribble filling the negative space. A black and white photo of a traditional dining table. A background of coastal walks and rolling hills. Surrounding all this, graphic shapes.
three concepts for an editorial collage illustration commission, these are the initial working sketches. Gymnasts fly and float across the compositions, over blue graphic blocks and vintage gym photos. The Art director chooses from these options.
An article about civic bodies, specifically gymnasts, by Noema Magazine. The story title and editorial illustration is seen on a iPad screen, introducing the story. The editorial image is a collage made by artist Sian Roper.

This Noema Magazine editorial collage commission was the first one I ever did, and it was all thanks to a collage I made and shared that featured my own grandmother.

Before I landed this first art commission, I made digital collages just for fun at the weekends. At the top of this page is a vintage artwork I made featuring a portrait of my grandmother, coastal walk views, an empty dining room table with some cutout graphic shapes and pencil markings. Pretty random and accidental, but still a noteworthy collage in terms of colour balance and composition.

The Art Director of Noema magazine discovered this on Instagram and emailed me about an editorial commission. She had an upcoming article about society's civic duty to exercise, with a specific focus on the politics of gymnastics, and felt my vintage graphic collage style would be a good fit. She talked me through the process of outlining 3 concepts and then refining the chosen artwork. We agreed that some animation would also be a nice touch to really make this editorial sing.

You can see here the 3 proposed sketches, the chosen collage and how it was refined, plus the animated version that was used on Noema's website and socials. Always grateful to look back on this first commission and see how far my journey as a collage artist has progressed.

two random digital floating shapes in pink and red. The red rectangle is flat colour. The pink triangle has a red paint brush texture across the surface.
PROJECTS