Jack Ede is a 21 year old artist from Kilmarnock, Scotland, specialising in detailed and captivating drawings created using pencils and soft pastels. He tries his best to capture the true beauty of his subjects by spending hundreds of hours analysing features, layering colours and refining many intricate details which altogether create a stunning piece of art.

One of his main goals is to be able to create beautiful art for the rest of his life with the sole purpose of fascinating and inspiring people like yourself. Since Jack decided to leave school at the age of 18 to pursue this dream, he’s endured many ups and downs but always tried his best to stay focused on drawing. As well as a full time artist, Jack also works part time as a tattoo artist at Iron & Ink in Vejle, Denmark.

“Like most kids, I was drawing from a young age but not consistently. From what I can remember and from family stories I was always fond of drawing from my imagination and creating little scenarios or fictional characters. Art was always my favorite subject at school but it was rare that I’d draw at home. I started to take it more seriously at the age of 16 when people started to tell me I was good at it and offered me money to draw their family members or pets etc. I found myself drawing during breaks at school, in other classes that weren’t art class. Drawing after school and on the weekends. Whether it was to make money or just for pleasure, it didn’t matter. 2 years later it got to the stage where I realized I was a terrible student and decided to drop out of school. My mind was always elsewhere and school just seemed to be a waste of time for me and my teachers. I was 18 and confused, I had no direction or game plan other than to draw the best I could and take each day as it came. I found myself drawing at least 10 hours a day and sometimes it could’ve been 10 hours straight without eating or walking around the house. There was times I realized i hadn’t even left the house in over a week it was that bad. But like anyone I had good days and bad days, sometimes I wouldn’t want to draw for a whole week, I just wanted to go out or play on my Xbox, anything but draw. However, just before I turned 19 I started a tattooing apprenticeship and that’s when my drawing ability started to suffer and progress slowed down. Of course I was still drawing the odd little thing but I was so focused on learning and committing to a new trade that sometimes it would be 2-3 months where I hadn’t drawn anything worth looking twice at. Although, even though I wasn’t always physically drawing, I was always reading into it trying to educate myself. It’s useful to even take information relating to something else and try convert it so you can apply it to drawing. I’ve spent countless hours indulging in other peoples artwork via social media and all sorts of books, trying to pick brains and understand the processes behind the masterpieces I adored. My mind was constantly flooded with information and techniques I could apply to drawing, I just didn’t always have the time to draw whenever I wanted to due to having other responsibilities. So as you can imagine, whenever I did have the pleasure of sitting down to draw, I made the most of it.”

"The Alchemist" by Jack Ede