Can you tell us about some of your career highlights and artistic journey?

From working in design in my early twenties to storyboarding for advertising and the movie business to illustrating for editorials, my career has been an ongoing opportunity to pursue what I love best; drawing and sketching. Storyboarding the first three series of The Vikings television series was a particular blast. I worked with a variety of directors from Johan Renck to Ciaran Donnelly and Ken Girotti and being in the middle of this enormous international production, despite the crazy deadlines, was always compelling and exciting. Writing and illustrating my book The Lighthouses of Ireland was a particular pleasure and winning the An Post Award for Best Irish Published Book of the Year was the icing on the cake. On a more intimate level, since starting Irelandposters.ie, I now have an excuse to sketch and paint in parts of the country I might not otherwise have visited. The Lecale peninsula in County Down and the East Cork coastline I had never properly explored until I visited St John’s point and Ballycotton lighthouse while illustrating my book, while other spots were welcome re-visits, such as the Aran Islands, which, a couple of thousand bicycles apart, had changed little from my memories as a nine-year-old.

You started sketching and illustrating landmarks over three years ago and were obviously inspired by the golden age of travel and its posters. What is the aim of your beautiful Ireland Posters?

With National Independence our railways were ultimately taken over by a fledgling CIE who unlike their European counterparts didn’t have the funds to produce beautiful full colour posters advertising the various destinations they served, so there was no tradition of posters extolling the virtues of Wexford beaches or the Ring of Kerry, much less towns along the way such as Westport or Clifden. I decided it was time to put that to rights and I started out with two posters – one for Kilkenny and one for Drogheda. Before you knew it I had about 40 complete and the website was launched.

How and where do you work? How do the posters take shape?

I work from my home studio in Kilkenny. Generally, I start with some layout sketches to get a feel for what I want the poster or print to say and then using a combination of reference photos and tonal sketches, I start to compose and paint the final idea using a digital screen similar to those used by animators. I print most of the posters in-studio, so I’ll do a few print outs and pin them to the wall for a few days before I finally decide if they’re finished and ready to go.

One of the things I missed with digital painting was the sense that the artist’s hand was obvious in the texture of the finished work, so I scanned my thumb-print and created a digital brush from that. Now it’s a major part of the texture of the paintings – you could say my fingerprints are all over the posters!

The Ireland Posters include places you have been on holiday this year – have you had any favourites in this growing collection?

This summer, my family headed down to West Cork to visit some friends and then took a rambling journey along the west coast crossing the Shannon on the Tarbert ferry and onwards through Kilkee, Doolin and into Galway. I think I produced six new posters from the trip. The Pollock Holes near Kilkee were fascinating, and were quickly jotted into the sketchbook, as was Inis Mór and its meandering stony fields and laneways. We finally came to a halt in Sligo where I was convinced to jump on a horse and take a ride through the surf with Benbulben rising dramatically in the background. That was an experience that was just asking to be turned into a poster.

Need to Know: The Ireland Poster Store comprises collections on Irish counties, lighthouses, pubs, birds and villages in Dublin. The posters are priced from €30 and framed options are also available; www.irelandposters.ie.