Hannah-Michelle Bayley’s whimsical drawings are like mythical memes

Hannah-Michelle Bayley’s work has two main offshoots — her embroidered designs and her illustrated works. Although sometimes, “the two collide to make a funky fusion”, she says. Inspired by print ephemera and media from the 70s-90s, and being the kind of creative that’s more inclined to use analogue techniques, her illustrations all start with “a rusty nib pen and ink” — tools with an “unpredictability and character” that the artist has grown very fond of. Once her artworks are drawn out, Hannah scans in her wholesome creatures and scenes to add her cosy colour palettes to them digitally.

A lot of the illustrator’s work references quotes she comes across or silly little one-liners she crafts from current memes or events. If we had to pick a favourite it might be ‘I’m staying home and eating spaghetti for the foreseeable future’. “I like to make artwork that people will see and think, yeh that’s me,” she explains — which could be why people love her drawings so much they want to wear them. Seeing embroidery as an extension of her illustration practice, the artist will often translate these characters onto embroidered hats and T-shirts that she makes herself, to sell on her online shop.

Hannah-Michelle found her whimsical style after shifting her focus away from editorial illustration during the pandemic. The artist first started to experiment with pairing her uplifting and comical quotes with tiny bug-like characters in covid lockdowns. When people started asking for prints and T-shirts of designs they liked, Hannah naturally began selling her work to a wholesome crowd of followers, “using my Instagram page as a virtual measure for what to turn into merch”, she says. “I still do work with clients/brands when they reach out, but it’s usually because they’ve seen my posts on Instagram rather than a formal portfolio. It feels empowering to work this way because I’m not waiting for permission to approach certain themes or topics… I just create artwork from things that strike me in everyday life.”