Art
Behind everything, my one lifelong passion has been creating art. Since childhood I have drawn and painted and, by the time I left school, the only place I wanted to be was at art college. In 1992 I was lucky enough to be accepted at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design.
There I found drawing to be my doorway into the world of design and from there I moved onto the University of Hertfordshire to gain my degree in Imagemaking & Design. I still dabble to this day, occasionally attending courses and evening classes to keep my hand in and improve my technique.
When all else fails, a pencil and paper work just fine...
Portrait painting
In 2018 I took part in a Portraiture course in Newlyn, Cornwall with resident artist Tim Hall of the Royal Society of Marine Artists. It was a truly inspirational and immersive experience that reignited my fascination in capturing the features and expressions of the human face. Since then I have done further work at the Art Students League in New York.
Figure drawing
Since attending art school in the early 1990s drawing from life has remained a consistent interest of mine which I believe remains a core skill in figurative composition, requiring as it does close attention to line and tone. In recent years I have attended sessions and courses with The Drawing Circus (Brighton), The Paper Mill (Apsley), The Pump House (Watford) and Shoestring Studios in Brooklyn, New York.
Travels
On my travels whether on vacation, business or simply visiting friends my sketchbook seldom leaves my side and is a wonderful means of committing my experiences to memory. Here are a few quick sketches from locations I have visited in recent years...
Drink & draw
During the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown in 2020 I joined an online community of artists to take part in their 'Drink & Draw' sessions. The premise was simple – the moderator would set a theme for the evening and give participants 30 minutes to come up with a drawing in response which would then be shared to their Instagram feed. In what was otherwise a claustrophobic and worrying time, I found this a wonderfully therapeutic means of escape! Here are a few examples from those sessions...
Landscape painting
As with figure drawing, capturing landscapes provides a solid basis of understanding composition and perspective which is highly relevant in visual design. These are a few examples of my recent landscape paintings...
