James Croft

See more of my work on instagram

I graduated from Wolverhampton University with a first in Illustration. 

Over the last 25 years, I have worked as a freelance illustrator.

I began my career illustrating magazines. Soon after, I received commissions to illustrate children’s books. To date, I have had more than 40 books published. I’ve also worked with ad agencies and marketing companies. My clients include Aardman Animation, Marks and Spencer, BBC, Macmillan, Walker Books, Persil, Nescafe, and Penguin Books.

I illustrated my first hospital mural project 9 years ago. Since then, I have created dozens of public art pieces, including the Herd of Sheffield.

I enjoy using my illustration experience to bring art out of the gallery and make it more accessible. Everyone deserves to live in beautiful, healthy environments, and painting hospital murals is a huge part of this. I continue to create work to enrich spaces around the U.K.

I’m having fun in my studio painting hospital murals #mural #muralartist #workinprogress #originalart #illustration
I’m excited to be starting the mural artwork for my project with Plymouth Hospital. 14 murals will be hand painted and 4 produced digitally. They are for the new Dartmoor Building which is due to open in August. The images will reflect landscap
This is the fourth and final mural I did for Bournemouth Hospital #mural #muralart #muralartist #illustration #illustrator #artwork #artist
This is my next post about the project I did for Bournemouth Hospital. It shows the third of four LED murals I did for the recovery rooms. #illustration #illustrationartwork #murals #hospitalart #artwork #procreate
The second of four murals for Bournemouth Hospital #mural #hospitalmural #artwork #art #illustration #illustration_art #design #underwater #sealife
This is one of four illustrations I did for Bournemouth Hospital. They are all for LED displays that will be installed on the ceilings of recovery rooms. The theme is a day at the beach. They are 1.2 metres square. I will post the other three over th
Tony Hedges has settled nicely into the new studio. He’s as happy as ever collecting my pencil shavings #art #studio #assistant #design #sketchbook
Dennis is hiding from the scary sheep. A detail from the Sheep Tor Room mural I’m designing for Plymouth Hospital #illustration #illustrations #design #kidslitart #mural #sketch
I’m working on a mural for the Fox Room at Plymouth Hospital. Here is an initial sketch #illustrations #mural #fox #artwork #sketch
I’m all about squirrels today! This is a sketch for the Squirrel Room mural I’m doing for my Plymouth Hospital project #mural #illustration #illustrations #childrensbooks #art #pencilsketch
I’ve started designing my next project. It’s 18 murals for the new Dartmoor Building at Plymouth Hospital. 7 of these are for patient exam rooms. Each has an animal name and I’m designing murals to fit the theme of each room. This i
Two whelks having a chat. This is a detail from one of four murals I’m doing for Bournemouth Hospital. They will be printed onto LED displays and installed in the ceiling in recovery rooms. #mural #hospitalart #childrensbooks #art #design #kids