British Airways is looking for British talent

I am an illustrator and qualified teacher, and would like to expand my client base for editorial illustration to the South of France. I would also like to explore the possibility of running classes in field painting in the region and if I won flights to Nice this would help me do this.

I always wanted to be an artist when I was growing up, but my parents always told me no one ever made a living out of art and encouraged me into the sciences. Two degrees and many years later I realised the truth was that no one makes a real living from science in the UK. With my options limited by my specific areas of study I trained as a Geography teacher. But two and a half years ago the BBC ran a competition to find a political cartoonist for the Politics Show. I hadn't drawn anything for many years, but as I am interested in politics as well I thought I'd give it a go and luckily for me I won. I was then contracted to create a weekly editorial cartoon for the next two years, which featured on the TV show and on the official BBC website, where I had my own gallery. During this time I had the chance to work in collaboration with John Culshaw, who provided the voices to go with a series of sketches I produced. Unfortunately the BBC felt the economic squeeze last Christmas and my time with them had to come to an end. Since then I have been working on my website: www.garybarker.co.uk and creating pieces for newspapers and magazines. I haven't yet managed to find myself new regular political cartoon/illustration work, but I am absolutely determined to do so and I never want to go back to the days when I put my pens and brushes away again.