This summer, Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity launched Pride of Yorkshire, a region-wide series of lion sculptures painted by selected artists from around the area... and I was so happy to be selected.

The deadline for visual submissions was three days before my wedding, and I so wanted to fulfil this ambition. It was one I had harboured for twelve years. I was, to all intents and purposes, homeless back then, and one of the few highlights of that period was discovering the original trail of Children’s Hospital fundraising elephant sculptures and, as such, art itself, other artists’ processes, and the wide variety of strong opinions people held about artistic work.

I had only just decided to commit to being an artist: a top-to-bottom retraining and putting myself out there. I had started to feel secure in the knowledge that if Grayson Perry said it didn’t matter what other people think about your work, that what really matters is that you have done your best, delivered a process that is personal and meaningful to yourself, and created something you are happy to show others, then I would do my best and have a good go.

I spent two nights sleeplessly wrangling ideas and concluded it needed to be a simple, strong, clear premise; one to which I and my work could be tethered. Before long, I decided that Ethel and the story of the Peak District National Park on its 75th anniversary were ideal. I had produced a hard-line drawing for the Stoney Middleton Well Dressings about Ethel Haythornthwaite, so I had studied her story and felt it was so worthy, and such recent history, that it needed to be the core of the two lions’ artwork: Ethel and her husband Gerald.

In a panic, I managed to wrestle two quick drawings together for Ethel and Gerald and, with a great deal of reading and rereading of the submission guidelines, submitted my work by email with everything crossed. This really did mean a lot to me.

We got married a few days later and, although that’s a longer story, it proved to be the summit of a different mountain: the greatest joy and a forever memory that we can now share with hundreds of friends. We honeymooned in Florence, and I waited and pondered whether I had done enough, whether the story was good enough, whether my art was up to scratch — in short, every self-doubt associated with the submission.

Shortly after returning, I received an email: I had been selected!

It was one of my proudest moments to discover that my proposed artwork had been chosen. I literally jumped up and down on the spot, something I haven’t done many times in my life.

There are so few times in life when your work is validated; when someone whose opinion you respect says you have done a good job, or that your work has value. In fact, as a graphic designer for more than thirty years, it almost never happens. For the most part, you work very long, late hours, often alone and isolated. You spend this time doing your absolute best, giving clients your best work, who, by the very nature of being in business, are often reluctant to give praise, only for that work to be replaced a few years later.

I love being an artist now for this very reason.

So... the game was on.

I still had a lot of work to do. I had already created a maximalist design for the Peak District, building it from scratch, and this was a good base. I had everything that was essential to the Peak District in place, but I still had to create Sheffield on the other side, as Ethel was the pioneering visionary who drew the line that saved the west side of Sheffield from development back in the day — land that would later become part of the Peak District. It made sense to create a work of two sides, divided down her spine.

Researching and building a work about the heart of Sheffield in a maximalist style took a while, but as a Sheffield-schooled young man, it was a labour of love. Memories flooded back of the city, my childhood, Redgates, The Moor, the Hole in the Road, the wire works in Tinsley, and a warm childhood. It feels particularly pertinent nowadays, as Mum and Dad have both gone.

Sheffield is a large city, consistently among the ten largest in the UK and, as I am well aware because my father was part of its steel wire industry, has one of the greatest cultural heritages in the country. It is a city built around steelmaking and blessed with an incredibly friendly population that makes it, by its own self-appointment, the largest village in Britain.

I am a digital artist who primarily works with iPads, computers, and Wacom tablets, so analogue art, however appealing and romantic it was to me, was realistically a skill I wasn’t sure I still had.

Finally, after much self-negotiation about Jarvis Cocker’s importance, along with other Sheffield icons, in a summary story of this great city, I created the Sheffield maximalist pattern as a series of four squares, which can be put together as a row of three or a square of four in different sequences for different applications such as prints, clothing, and lions.

Summoning Up Inner Bravery, Learning to Paint Again, Rediscovering Skills from My Childhood

I needed to find the courage to translate this onto the large and beautiful blank canvases that the lions are. This was a new skill to discover.

So, armed with a pencil, a rubber, and not a little trepidation, I drew out the lines as I saw them — lines I had confidently drawn onto an iPad, but did not know whether I could reproduce on a much larger, three-dimensional canvas.

I was so relieved when I stood back and realised I could do this, and that it worked.

I celebrated with tea.

Years of drawing and painting, technical drawing, and general artistic endeavour as a child and young man seemed to have been of value.Phew.

All we had to do now was find the right medium to paint with, learn about varnishing, and work out the level of detail we could take the work to; how to lock down the key lines around which the design was built, and we would be there.

"No worries," I thought, trying to encourage myself.

But honestly, every step, as a thorough person who doesn’t kid himself, was an anxious problem to solve.

Thankfully, a combination of wonderfully helpful gallery customers, kind and knowledgeable Children’s Hospital Charity staff with prior experience, and a fair bit of YouTube got me there.A Whole Lot of Patience and Privileged Daily Labours

I had planned on taking two days.

It actually took twenty, or thereabouts.

The subsequent process was anything but disappointing. Despite taking the best part of three months of work — which, in all fairness, included moving both sculptures and everything else in my life to our new gallery in the centre of Sheffield — it was a wonderful labour of love.

I learned humility again, gained a newfound respect for my more painterly contemporaries, and discovered a whole lot of patience.

I can’t thank the people at Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity enough for this opportunity, for their patience, and for their wise counsel.

As much as I love a challenge, and this was one carried out with a great deal of positive feeling, sometimes you have to see the truth of a project and accept that you have a lot to learn; knuckle down and finish the work when you might otherwise prefer to be doing other things; and appreciate the privilege of your daily labours.

Thank you.

Si

Si Homfray
10-06-2026