Mark Hearld was born in 1974. He studied illustration at Glasgow School of Art, followed by an MA in Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art. His work is based on his observations of the natural world, influenced by mid-twentieth-century Neo-Romanticism and the gaiety of 1930s Modernism. Hearld is inspired by British artists such as Eric Ravilious, John Piper and Edward Bawden.