My Biography:

I'm a Nottingham based animal artist using pastels and oils.  I'm completely self-taught other than doing GCSE art many years ago, but I cannot remember a time when I haven't been drawing. 

I grew up in Somerset where the surrounding Exmoor countryside inspired my love of animals.  My Grandad was a Point-to-Point racehorse trainer and so I was always around horses and other animals.

The first person to inspire me was my primary school art teacher, Mr Stannion, and I could never thank him enough for his encouragement.  I'll always remember seeing a drawing he had done of a horse's head and I decided that I wanted to be able to draw like that.  From then on I spent hours in my bedroom drawing horses!

 

                          

                                        Riding in Cuba with my partner Clive

 

I studied GCSE art at school with a lovely teacher called Mr Cole, but I didn't enjoy the course.  I was never interested in modern art, screen printing, or pottery, I just wanted to draw (and mainly horses at that!). 

In 1995 I moved to Nottingham to study Zoology at Nottingham University and went on to qualify as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG. Since then I've worked for Boots plc and the Alliance & Leicester plc.

In 2005 I had my son Thomas followed by my daughter Gemma in 2007. Since taking a career break from Finance I started doing animal portrait commissions and found that people loved the realism that can be captured using pastel.

In 2009 I joined the Nottingham Society of Artists and attend a life drawing class with them on a Wednesday evening. I've also become a friend of the Society of Equestrian Artists and had three pictures accepted into their 2009 annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries London.  I've since become the Membership secretary for the SEA which keeps me busy in my spare time!

Artists who inspire me include: Ken Howard, David Curtis, Trevor Chamberlain and Kevin Macpherson. But if I had to choose one person who I wish I could paint like it would be Malcolm Coward without a shadow of doubt. I just love the light and colour within his paintings. If I work hard enough maybe one day I'll be that good!