Meet Award-winning Illustrator Owen Davey

Discover the wonderful world of this multi-talented British artist as he tells us about his creative process, influences, and inspiration

Owen Davey (@owendaveydraws) is passionate about illustration. His award-winning children’s books have been published in every continent except Antarctica. Working from the English coastal town of Worthing, Owen is known for his geometric vector illustrations, limited color palettes, and his love of drawing animals. Among his clients, he counts Google, Facebook, Sony, The New York Times, National Geographic, Microsoft, Lego, the Two Dot app, and many, many more.

His success is no surprise when considering the determination that has marked his career path. ‘I’ve always been very single-minded about my journey to become an illustrator. When asked “what do you want to do when you grow up?” as a kid, I said that I wanted to write and draw books for children. I never really deviated from that path,’ Owen says.

Getting his first commission for The Guardian newspaper before graduating (with a First Class Degree in Illustration in 2009), Owen set out on a career that led him to collect an impressive list of accolades over a decade. We thought we’d ask him to share his experience and give us a glimpse into his unique illustration universe.

What were your biggest influences as an artist?

I'm constantly inspired by the illustrations that I find around me every day. I go searching for a lot, and I love so many different styles and approaches. Growing up, I was massively inspired by computer game art and spent hours copying characters from games magazines. As an adult, I became increasingly interested in the ideas of icons and simplification. I think it's really fun when the human brain fills in some of the gaps rather than something photorealistic. The concept of drawing a square and a triangle and somebody being able to recognize that as a house, that's really cool. I like playing around with geometry in my own work and boiling something down to more simplistic forms. That's an idea used by a lot of artists over the years, but I particularly loved Charley Harper's work with that approach.

I used to hate the work of Picasso growing up, but now I love playing around with that idea of showing an image of something from several perspectives at once–although in a much more stripped back fashion. With a mug, for example, I often draw it from the side but with a perfectly circular shot of it as if it's from above. There's something exciting about breaking the rules of the world in illustration and releasing yourself from those physical restraints. Illustration provides utter creative freedom with all that.

How do you get inspired to produce a piece of artwork?

- I'm primarily a commercial illustrator, so in all honesty, most of the time, the inspiration comes from the brief. If it's not the brief itself, I put a lot of research in around it and try to find inspiration from what I learn. Having said that, there are certain things I'm often drawn to and that I tend to hone in on. My favorite briefs often include animals, nature, and humans. They're the things that I consistently keep coming back to, and I find immensely fun to draw. When I get the rare chance of creating work purely for myself, I usually end up drawing animals and/or humans.

How do you structure your working day? Describe your ideal day at work.

- I never used to structure my day at all. I would just work when I felt the most productive and would often favor working later at night and sleeping in in the morning. I now have two children, so I'm regularly woken up in the morning by my youngest, trying to put my glasses on my face and asking me to read a picture book. It also means that I want to finish at more traditional times to eat dinner with them and hang out with them before doing the bedtime routine together. This all means that I now have a fairly basic 9-5 approach to my work, but sometimes I have to do some late nights to boost my productivity to meet deadlines, and other times I take time off to just go for a family walk or something. I think I'm naturally still a night owl, but that doesn't go hand in hand with ‘dadding.’

How do you overcome creative block?

- I tend to work on several projects at once, so if I hit a dead end on one or find myself waning in enthusiasm for it, I switch to another. If I'm just not feeling creative at all, I do the other stuff involved in running your own business. I prep stuff for my online store, I sort out my website, answer emails, issue invoices, do taxes, etc. I just keep going, really. And if I'm not feeling it, I'll just stop for the day and pick it up another day–one of the joys (and curses) of being your own boss is that you set your own work hours.

Would you say your illustration style has changed over time? How?

- Massively, yeah. I went professional straight out of university in 2009, and my stuff was quite different then. I used very muted color palettes and quite a lot of hand-drawn lines. Over time, I realized I was tending to get similar feedback from clients and started to adjust my approach to the work so that that wasn't happening. I also got better at my craft, found new digital techniques, and experimented in different ways. Some people may prefer my older stuff, but you have to do stuff for yourself artistically, and I'm always trying to play about a bit with what I'm doing. I wouldn't ever want to stagnate in my work. I want to stay perpetually excited by it.

What was the most important lesson you learned at Art School?

- I'm sure there are a bunch that I learned that are super important, but one that seems to have stuck with me and is part of my overall style aesthetic is to do with mixing colors. I was taught by my painting teacher at college that I should never use colors directly from the tube; I should always mix in some other colors with it. This was especially true of white and black. Always add a bit of yellow to your white, and always build a black out of brown and blue to give them more depth. Even now, I rarely use pure black or pure white in my illustration.

What advice would you give to aspiring illustrators?

- ‘Work hard, look after yourself, always meet deadlines, and listen to your moral compass. If you can do that, you should be able to craft a career for yourself.’

Owen Davey‘s 7th non-fiction animal book, Curious About Crocodiles, will soon be released through Flying Eye Books publishers. Previous titles in the series include Smart About Sharks, Bonkers About Beetles, and Obsessive About Octopuses.

‘These are some of my most labor-intensive projects, taking roughly a year to complete. I write these 40-page books myself, which adds an extra layer of difficulty, but gives me an amazing amount of creative freedom. They’re huge labors of love, and they’re kind of like my babies'.

Watch this space and look out for Owen Davey’s Domestika course, Stylized Vector Illustration with Color and Character. He will be teaching how to create stunning artwork for digitally illustrated characters, using carefully curated color palettes and references adapted to your own style.

You may also like:

- 5 Free Classes to Successfully Promote Your Illustrations on Instagram
- Illustration Tutorial: Tips to Create Your Professional Portfolio
- Design Tutorial: 5 Ways to Be a Better Illustrator