I was delighted to hear last week that my entry into AOI’s Prize for Illustration has been shortlisted. This year’s theme for the annual competition, which is run in partnership with the London Transport museum, was ‘Sounds of the City’. My piece ‘Surprise City Sounds‘ was inspired by a recent visit to Kew gardens. It struck me how amazing it is that places of such natural beauty can thrive within the hustle and bustle of modern, metropolitan cities. I wanted to try and capture this in a simple bold image. I used Transport for London’s iconic logo to represent the hum drum of city traffic. The Rose-ringed parakeets represent the more unexpected city sounds that can be heard. The two are intertwined with each other showing how both share the same outside space. The 100 shortlisted illustrations will be on display from 19 May until 3 September 2017 at the London Transport Museum.