 meet the artist
As an illustrator, there are other considerations. It is often the underlying idea, rather than the physical reality of the subject that I am trying get across. I might use three-dimensional diagrams, pictorial maps and comic strips to bring a difficult subject to life. This portrait sketch in acrylics on board was painted in 1996. After several years of work on my book Yorkshire Rock, a journey through time I was ready for a complete change from all those illustrations of dinosaurs, lost worlds and slices into the Earth. I'd put all my energies into the book, it was an obsession, a labour of love, but I was ready to get out and simply paint from nature again. Using a bigger brush. I painted all day out in the wood, producing a series of canvases of the old crack willows overhanging the stream. When it got too dark to paint outdoors I was still so enthused by that magical feeling that you can get from painting for painting's sake, that I'd start a still life indoors, or, in this case, a portrait of the only person willing to sit; myself. For the past year I have kept an internet nature diary on my Wild West Yorkshire site. I've included a detailed C.V. at the foot of the page.
Detailed C.V.I have worked as an illustrator, writer and teacher, since I graduated, as a student in the department of natural history illustration from the Royal College of Art, London, in 1975.
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AS A PAINTER, whether I'm painting a tree, an animal or a human being, I try to be honest to the experience of what I see. This how I saw myself while painting - I don't always look this serious.