Rob’s not just an artist, he’s a person. What?…

Here's a little bio about Rob.

Video interview of Rob Milton by Tiffany Oud

A little about Little Rob

Rob Milton was born in the small town of Grand Cash, Alberta where, at a young age, he took up drawing and painting inspired by a local artist and family friend Essen Gale. Rob moved to Calgary Alberta when he was 7 and continued to draw any chance he could get. The margins of most of his school text books were filled with cartoon doodles. The idea of caricature was introduced to him during high school social class, finally giving a name to the cartoon portraits of people he liked drawing. It was at that age that he had to answer the big questions teens get asked, “what do you want to do for the rest of your life”. He decided to pursue an education in art and attended Alberta College of Art and Design (now Alberta University for the Arts) where he obtained a Bachelor’s of Design Degree with a major in Illustration in 2009.

“Being an artist must be hard.”- A fraise heard too often, but all too true.

His professional career started before the end of school; he was commissioned to paint a caricature during 3rd year, and sold items at local markets. By the end of college he had aspirations of drawing comic books, kids books, comic strips, designing toys or creating animations. At the time, being a full time caricature artist wasn’t even on the radar. While he promoted himself as an illustrator he would discreetly draw people in cafe’s for practice. Many people told him he should sell his caricatures on the street like they do in Montreal. Though the endeavour of doing street art in the business hub Calgary seemed crazy, he set up and tried it anyway. Response to his art was great and it wasn’t long before clients were requesting him to come to their parties to draw guests. He was now not just an artist, but an entertainer, a place he never thought his career would take him, but a place he was happy to end up. After three years of slinging coffee, he quit his day job and started drawing full time.

With the spirit of a nomad

Rob moved around a few times always looking for an adventure, an endeavour that would prove a good influence to his art career. The summer of 2010 was spent in Vernon, BC, where he taught a teen summer camp art class. Rob traveled to Australia for half a year in 2012 to hustle his art in the busker friendly city of Melbourne; a great place for him to see how other artist worked and try his hand at tackling a different market. In 2014 he traveled to New Zealand with his art for 8 months, managing to do work in 6 different cities. He must like Calgary because he always returned and once again resides in the Albertain city. He often works at private events and festivals throughout Southern Alberta and even into BC. He still loves to travel for pleasure, forcing himself out of his comfort zone and immersing himself in the local culture of the places he visits.

Heading forwards

In recent years his work has expanded and he takes on more commission work and corporate illustrations. In 2018 he started drawing digital caricatures live at events. He does some personal projects to feed his creative sole; surreal wall paintings, funny comic strips, random carpentry projects, and mountain adventure art that he sells on stickers and other products.

Outside the art

When he’s not drawing he’s probably out being active. He dances forms of Swing and Latin dance. while in Australia he took up surfing, surfed throughout New Zealand and now river surfs in Calgary. He enjoys hiking, climbing, skiing, swimming, and attending live music shows.