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I was born in Liverpool in 1963 and have enjoyed drawing since a very early age. Although I graduated from school with only limited art qualifications, I did not feel the need to pursue any further academic training in art to improve my artistic ability. My talent to paint stems purely from my hobby and I am proud to declare that I am totally self taught. Up until my mid twenties I only drew with pencil and ball point pen, and my subject matter was very sparse indeed, from cartoons to still life sketching of animate objects etc. At the age of twenty five I was inspired by seeing a collection of watercolour paintings by a local Liverpool artist by the name of Frank Green who specialised in painting the urban townscapes of Liverpool. From here I purchased my first watercolour set, and began to build my own collection of townscapes over the following years. In my later thirties I then began to shift away from using watercolours as my sole medium and tried my hand at practising with the very versatile medium of oil paint. Because oil paint took quite a while to dry, this allowed me to return to it time and again to work "wet into wet" over a period of many hours which is a technique that is not possible with watercolour paint. My subject matter is almost entirely portraiture at present as the demand seems to be more greater I feel. Apart from painting I like to relax by immersing myself in my other pastimes. I go running on a daily basis to keep myself in good shape, and I regularly enjoy mountain hiking in Snowdonia, north Wales, Scotland and north Africa. At present I live with my partner Patricia on the Wirral Peninsula in the north west of England, and this is also where my studio is based.
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