I loved drawing as a child, and especially loved learning new techniques and ways of seeing. I have a vivid memory of a primary school art class in which everyone was painting the usual green lollipop trees with a stripe of blue at the top of the paper for the sky. Then I noticed one of my classmates had drawn a much more realistic tree, detailing every branch and filling the entire background with blue sky. I tried to emulate his technique with some success, and since then I have never stopped learning.
As a teenager I became a bit obsessed with caricature, after discovering the early work of Sebastian Kruger. I did a lot of pretty bad caricatures, until I took an online course with Jason Seiler and started to learn about digital caricature illustration.
Around the same time I finally started to explore oil painting, having worked mainly in graphite until my early 20s. At some point I started to gravitate toward portraiture rather than caricature, and that was my main focus for much of my 20s and 30s.
In 2021 I became a bit burnt out and disillusioned, and took a complete break from painting for several years. Then in early 2025 my wife and I moved to a new house in Sheffield with a back garden teeming with birds and wildlife. I bought a camera with a zoom lens, and started to take photos of both our garden visitors, and other wildlife in the nearby Peak District, and gradually the urge to paint started to resurface.
I picked up a brush again in April 2025 and have barely put it down since. Using my own photos as reference has given me renewed inspiration, and the transition from portrait artist to wildlife artist has brought me a lot of joy as I attempt to capture the beauty of the natural world on our doorstep and beyond.
Prizes & Awards
- Daily Paintworks Monthly Contest
- January 2026 – Judge’s Pick (“Otter”)
- November 2025 – Third Place (“Blue Tit in Flight”)
- July 2025 – Judge’s Pick (“Pounce”)
- October 2020 – First Place (“Hood”)
- 2019 – Art in the Gardens Portraits of Distinction – Third Place.
Exhibitions & Shows
- September 2026 – Flock Exhibition, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield
- September 2026 – Art in the Gardens, Sheffield (Professional Artists Tent)
- August 2026 – 75 Years of National Parks Exhibition, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield
- August 2026 – Small Works Exhibition, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield
- July 2026 – Artist & Designer Fair, Pavilion Gardens, Buxton
- July 2026 – Summer Exhibition, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield
- May 2026 – Affordable Art Exhibition, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield
- March 2026 – Squares Exhibition, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield
- September 2025 – Art in the Gardens, Sheffield (Open Exhibition Tent)
- September 2021 – Art in the Gardens, Sheffield (Open Exhibition Tent)
- September 2020 – Art in the Gardens, Sheffield (Open Exhibition Tent)
