My name is Martyn. I am an American artist based in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK.

I work with a variety of mediums and take on commissions. I have a number of clients I work with on a continual basis.

I have gained work in illustrating a number of children’s books, as well as illustration of published work for clients in the USA, Scotland and England.

I also make traditional handmade prints using Japanese vinyl, linocut and drypoint. My passion is in printmaking.

Check out my Etsy shop for a range of handmade and digital prints, landscape drawings and my children’s book.

I love working on projects with people. If you have an idea or something that you would like to see come to life, please get in touch. I would love to hear from you.

From my site, I hope you’ll find strong affiliations to my faith, my Appalachian roots, and my adaptation to become a very happy Anglophile.

I had the opportunity to come to England to work for a Christian charity in Leeds in the Autumn of 1999. Twenty plus years later I’m still here along with my English wife and three beautiful kids.

So, why the name xomartynxo?

Back in the early 90’s I fell in love with the punk rock scene. I loved being a part of a counter-culture where my art could thrive.

At the time (in America) there was the birth of the straight-edge movement More info about that here. Many of my friends were part of this sub-culture, but for a lot of reasons, I couldn’t totally adhere to all of the ideals.

One of the ways people showed they were straight-edge was by drawing big X’s on their hands. As a joke, instead of X’s, I used to use the xomartynxo moniker and after a while, it just stuck.

Hugs and kisses are always better, right? Haha.

For me, xomartynxo acknowledges that my creativity that was given a place to grow and thrive back in those early days, but it also holds a subtler message in that I hope people see my work coming from a place of kindness, whilst being a bit of tongue in cheek fun.

My work currently focuses on illustration, namely children’s books. From the time of writing this, I have illustrated over 15 published titles with more work in the pipeline. I love the challenge of illustrating books and enjoy the aspect of working on a big project and seeing it through to completion. I have recently finished a project with a philosopher in the USA, which has been a very gratifying experience and I hope to continue to illustrate published work in the years to come.