Project Description

STEPHEN HANSON

The Toby Collection

Stephen has spent over 30 years working as a commercial artist after doing his initial training at Batley Art College. His prestigious career and catalogue of projects include household names such as DangerMouse and Roald Dahl’s ‘The BFG’.

Stephen continued in the world of animation and television with his own TV series, ‘The Ink Thief’ starring Richard O’Brien (of  ‘The Crystal Maze’).

Moving to more recent times and Stephens work has included spending time as a visual development artist on ‘Flushed Away’, ‘Despicable Me’ and ‘The Corpse Bride’. Do you remember ‘Arthurs Christmas’ from 2011? How about ‘Pirates’ another animated classic – yes, Stephen did that too!

As well as working on animated movies Stephen has also designed several commercials as well as illustrating several children’s books including Enid Blyton’s ‘Secret Seven’ series and ‘Nelly the Monster Sitter’ and has even written and illustrated his own book ‘Froobie Pink and the Night Noises’.

So how did he turn away from TV and get into painting for galleries? Well for many years his chosen medium was ink and watercolour but in recent years he has been experimenting with computers and found a programme called ‘Coral Painter’ which allowed him to choose his medium and then work with similar brush strokes as when working with paint, using a stylus pen directly onto the computer tablet.