"I’m a UK freelance illustrator working mainly for editorial clients like The Guardian, The Observer, The Financial Times and Reader’s Digest. My work can be seen fairly regularly illustrating the pages of The Guardian’s opinion section, where the articles cover politics, social care and the environment. I started out as an Art Director at ad agencies in the Midlands but mid-way through my career swapped to my true love of illustration and now work from my home studio in the Derbyshire peak district.

I was really pleased to be asked to illustrate this portrait of Johnny Gavin for the OTBC programme. It feels like an honour to celebrate the achievements of this record goal-scoring footballer by featuring his image on the cover. I loved the challenge of creating a likeness, researching and bringing to life the colours of the 1950s kit, which in most photos of the time are in black and white. I started by drawing a pencil sketch from an original photo of Johnny, and then inked the line work with a brush pen and coloured it digitally, adding my own textures and digital brushwork to bring it to life. Hope I’ve done the legend proud."

Words by Cover Artist, Eva Bee

To further celebrate this seasons Portrait of an Icon cover artwork, we've released print editions of every piece which are available to buy now from our online shop.