Our whole ethos at Graphic Tide is to help support artists and designers, by showcasing their work within our store, featuring their work on our social media platforms, and giving you taste of their work within our blog.

Our Creative Interview blog posts have been a real hit so far, and it’s great to get a taste of our creative’s work, by looking at their working process, finding out their inspirations and getting a sense of their own personality.

Following on from our fourth winner over on our voting platform, we’re really excited to conduct a Creative Interview with Moses Ashola. His t-shirt design ‘Pray’ has been a great success over on our voting platform, and is now available to buy at a discounted pre-order rate of £17.

It’s a great design which were really excited to be showcasing to you today, and we can’t wait to find out more about Moses. So let’s get into it by welcoming Moses Ashola!

1. Tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your main discipline?

Hello, my name’s Moses A. O. Ashola, (a.k.a asmocrafts, Ola-Jesu3), and I’m an Artist, Crafter, Calligrapher, Designer, Woodworker, and Teacher. I love everything to do with art and design, but I major in Painting, Beadwork on flat board, Calabash Carving, Applied Calligraphy and general Calligraphy.

I’ve been practicing Art and Craft since age 5, and went to Technical College to major in Carpentry and Joinery, but also attended another department called Painting and Decorating to learn about my inborn talent of Fine Art. It was in the P&D department that I came about the self-taught art books of The Walter Foster ‘How To Draw’ and ‘Pen & Brush Lettering & Alphabets’ by BlandFord Press, which taught me a lot about Fine Art. After practicing a lot with these books and after graduating as a Carpenter and Joiner, I enrolled for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) in Fine Art, and passed with flying colours.

Since then, I’ve been honing my God given talent till date, and love every aspect of art, all of them enables me to express myself deeply to a lot of people. I am a Registered Teacher, and teach Carpentry & Joinery, General Woodwork, Technical Drawing (Mechanical & Building) Building Draught-manship, Fine Art, Freet-Woodcarving craft, and Applied Calligraphy.

2. What are your biggest influences or inspirations as a creative?

I discovered that people liked my art work in the past and even more now. My inspiration comes after my morning devotion or any prayer time and reading of the Bible. Conclusively, my inspirations comes from the LORD JESUS CHRIST.

3. Tell us about your t-shirt design.

I was looking for a way of making my designs known to as many people as possible, so while I was browsing, I stumbled on Graphic Tide, I was really happy I did. In those days, I loved making paper stencil to print on vest, and other pieces of clothing. If you look at most of my designs, they are encouraging words to people, and so with my t-shirt design, I make people happy, come nearer to our creator, thus the design – Pray!, bringing peace to peoples environment.

4. Can you tell us about your creative process? How does your day shape up?

As I’ve said previously, my inspiration can come at any time after prayers and reading of the Bible, but as I grow older, my designs ideas pop up from everywhere. I jot down my design ideas onto paper, then draw this onto a larger scale and transfer it the medium I might want to use. Thus, most of my drawings have a template in case someone wants the artwork.

5. Tell us something which we might not know about you.

My works are very unique, rare to achieve and individual. I hate stealing, so when I hear people pirating another artist’s work, it pains me and wish I can get those pirates to talk to. God has given us individuals up to 500 talents, so why steal? Further more about me: I carve Calabash, which I do on a weekly basis.

6. Where can we get in contact with you?

You get in contact me more on my blog: www.asmocraftss.blogspot.com, and +2348092022496 and +2348056348288. I’ll love to hear from you!

Thanks Moses for giving us an insight into your working process, creative self and revealing your own personality!

Help and support Moses in his quest to help spread joy and peace to others by purchasing one of his designs, which you can buy here – t-shirt design ‘Pray’.

So thanks for visiting today, be sure to leave a comment below, as we would love to hear from you. Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, it will be great to see you on there. Thanks again, and have a great day!