“I was born in 1965 and brought up in Largs, a small seaside town on the West Coast of Scotland. I found my passion to draw at an early age and I have continued improving my skills and experimenting with art all my life.
After graduating in Illustration & Graphic Design from Building & Printing College in Glasgow, I started work 22 years ago as an illustrator, 4 years later became a 2D Graphic Artist, then worked for 12 years as a 3D Modeller, I now work as a full time artist.
My style of painting varies from realism to merging into impressionism, depending on the subject matter and my ideas can come from many sources, the majority of ideas develop when I’m working on another painting.
I paint immediately, covering the canvas with a colour that will dominate the painting and then use a rag to finely wipe away paint creating the sketch to work from, this is why I generally don’t bother with preparatory sketches, if I have the idea in my head I like to start painting at once and resolve everything on the canvas, this can change as the painting evolves which makes it more exciting about how the painting is going to turn out.
I tend to lose myself in my work, I become completely absorbed, with every painting I try to create something special that cannot be repeated. I quite simply have a passion to paint and if I create something that can evoke emotions, movement, laughter or a memory then I feel I have achieved a connection between canvas and viewer.
When I leave the studio the painting doesn’t leave me, I am still thinking about it and how I can evolve it into something special. My mind is visually aware of every day life, taking in colour and shapes, watching how the light & weather can change the mood, observing people with their expressions & movement.
Cartoons are another form of artwork I like to create in my free time. I have always been interested in character design and animation from a young age, especially the great talents of Walt Disney. So, sketching out cartoons then colouring them using Photoshop, is another great hobby of mine. This is a good way of challenging my imagination to think up different characters and facial expressions to help tell a story.”