Lonely Kids Club x Kayla Reay: Clive the Cyclist Illustration

Lonely Kids Club partners with Australian artist Kayla Reay on a cheeky coloured pencil wildlife illustration starring Clive the Cyclist.

When the news cycle feels relentless and the world spins slightly upside down, sometimes a cheeky graphic tee is the exact antidote design culture needs. Following our recent feature on Raku Inoue’s botanic wildlife collaboration with Gap, a delightful reader submission landed in our inbox from Warwick, founder of independent Sydney clothing label Lonely Kids Club. Teaming up with Australian traditional artist Kayla Reay, the brand has introduced the Clive the Cyclist Tee—a wildlife collaboration that swaps corporate scale for pure independent spirit and a bright green set of aerodynamic lycra.

Coloured Pencil Craft and Character in Wildlife Illustration

At the center of the design is Clive, an Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) reimagined as an earnest weekend cyclist. Australian magpies are notorious in local folklore for their fierce swooping season, but Reay deftly subverts that menace into suburban cycling bravado. Rather than relying on sterile digital vector paths, Reay builds each portrait by hand using coloured pencils. The rich wax and pigment layering captures the iridescent sheen of the magpie’s black-and-white plumage, while delicate, stippled strokes define the snug contours of his lime-green jersey, aerodynamic helmet, and high-performance racing bike. Most captivating is Clive's facial expression: a faintly judgmental, caffeine-depleted glare that instantly signals he has already crushed forty kilometers and is waiting impatiently for an oat flat white.

Lonely Kids Club prints each garment to order in their Sydney studio on 180 GSM combed cotton blanks, preserving the hand-drawn pencil grain through crisp digital direct-to-garment reproduction. The artwork translates naturally across white, athletic grey, forest green, and navy colorways, allowing the coloured pencil textures to pop without plastic sheen. It is a welcome reminder that wearable graphic design thrives when it tells a hyper-specific, affectionate local story.

Discover the Clive the Cyclist Tee and browse the broader lineup of independent artist releases in the Lonely Kids Club graphic tees collection.