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Rio Hayton
Illustration 2024



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Rio Hayton is a traditional and digital illustrator graduating with a BA (Hons) degree in Illustration for Commercial Application. Rio specialises in traditional pet portraiture painting and quirky childlike illustrations designed for use in prints, stickers, and other works that they sell on their stalls in various places. Throughout university, Rio has refined their skills in both aspects of their work, gaining more experience and knowledge of different techniques, materials, and software such as Procreate, InDesign and Photoshop. They also gained more experience with the clay medium during their FMP (Final Major Project) work, returning back to it, after almost 3 years of their first creation, in order to make some visually striking and unique jewellery pieces. The past 3 years of work is suitable to make a strong portfolio for Rio to use in whichever route they best see fit for their work, whether that be book illustration, working freelance, or getting additional support from other businesses to boost their own.

While at University, Rio leant toward children’s book illustration and running a small business. While vastly different, Rio inevitably decided to focus on running their own business, with the help of the Prince’s Trust. The creations that they had made during their FMP enabled Rio to get funding and became a Prince’s Trust supported business! Rio’s third year at university was a chance for them to really focus on this, as well as creating something they were really proud of, building on their previous work to improve their creations. Within their FMP, Rio managed to showcase a variety of skills, developing their clay techniques, and testing some new methods, all while working with the Prince’s Trust to create a business plan and finance tables. Rio’s aim for their FMP was to create a jewellery product line that would become a staple in their work and be something that they could consistently be noticed for, bringing, and selling them at stalls.

Rio originally started art very traditionally, teaching themselves how to draw the basics of figures, heads, and characters, with their favourite subject being illustration. Rio studied GCSE art and came out with a grade 9, after creating high level sketchbook and final exam work. Rio then went into Sixth Form to study art further, coming out with an A Level grade B after again demonstrating a variety of different abilities and methods. They then transitioned into University where they began to flourish, developing their skills further and managing to create intricate pet portraits for clients, as well as developing their work digitally and exploring different mediums.

Rio looks up to illustrators and small business owners such as Catherine Kay (owner of KatnippStudios), as well as Tiffany Tan (owner of AppleCheeks). These people showed Rio that starting a small business and making sales from their work was possible, so that is the route that they decided to go down, and so far it has paid off quite well.

Once Rio has graduated from university, they have plans to continue to work with the Prince’s Trust, developing their business further, making more products, attending more stalls, and overall enjoying selling their work and seeing the happiness it can bring to their customers!