After leaving school I got accepted into West Suffolk College in Bury St Edmunds on the strength of my portfolio alone, and began my diploma in graphic design, achieving an A* in photography. After that I was accepted into Cambridge UEA to study for a BA hons degree in graphic design. I absolutely hated it and was there for barely a year. Why did I hate it? Because it was all computer work, which felt utterly soulless to me, I should've chosen fine art instead. So I left University and concentrated on running several small businesses and carried on in this direction. Over the years I continued to sell my artwork both privately and via several local galleries. I met my wife who loved my work and, quite frankly, forced me to have faith and approach Washington Green with my portfolio! She got her way and I haven't looked back since!
Ideas & Inspirations
Toys, Lego, Animals, Babies, Music, Question Time(!!!), the list goes on, and at the risk of sounding cliched, because of the style of my work, I can get inspiration from almost anything. Obviously I'm inspired by other artists alive and dead, but there's far too many for me to list here.
Palette to Picture
Ideas pop into my head all the time. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to have a canvas in front of me, but usually I'll scribble it down on anything nearby, like a napkin, or a scruffy piece of paper, or my own arm, or my T-shirt.
The process starts with the background, once I'm happy with that, I then move onto painting the outline of the image. After that the canvas is placed totally flat on a surface and the paint is spooned onto the canvas and pushed and manipulated into place using my favourite rubber tipped stick thing! People often ask me if I use stencils or if there's some trickery to my pictures, but I can assure you, every single line and block of colour is painted one hundred percent freehand. I'm astonished that I haven't exploded, or gone mental, or chopped one of my ears off!
A Day in the Life
Every day is completely different depending on how long i've slept for, and if i've had any family stuff to do! There is no am or pm in my life, I paint for as long as I physically can and try and go on as little sleep as possible!!!! I suppose the most typical routine would be to rise about 3pm, kiss my wife and kids, drink 20 gallons of coffee, shout at my pets (not that they pay any attention), and then lock myself away in my studio emerging now and again for coffee, or when my wife calls me at feeding time! We'll spend a couple of hours together and then I'm back in my studio until roughly between 6am and 9am.
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