School days...

Ever since I can remember it was often mentioned I was quite good at drawing & painting and I clearly enjoyed creating pictures as a child. So it's no surprise this was also one of my favorite subjects at School along with science having always had a interest in space exploration aged 9 years old, ignited by the 1969  Apollo moon landings. With my father in the forces my education was a lesson in geography, attending various schools in the UK before attending  BFPO schools in Germany. Then back to the UK, followed by two very memorable years in Hong Kong, back to England, back to Germany for 2 years before finishing my final school year in Jersey in the Channel Islands where my parents hail from. 

My school reports often showed at least an A for Art. and a good interest in science. During my final year at  Le Quennevais Park School in Jersey, I was always in the art room enjoying painting during lunch breaks, by then inspired by the Album cover artwork's of Roger Dean created for the prog rock band " YES". I ended my final year with enough paintings for my Art  teacher Mr Harris  to arrange an exhibition of my work at the school and managed to sell a painting for £15. A  huge sum of money to me at the time. As a shy kid I remember this really improving my self confidence .

 

Salisbury Art college & graphics...

After school further education in a creative field was an obvious choice. With my parents now living near Salisbury Wiltshire their final army posting, the cities Art College seemed the ideal place to go next. In the blazing summer of 1976 and no Illustration courses available at the art college, I embarked on a three year graphics design course. I enjoyed every day of the whole Salisbury Art college experience completing my South Western Regional Diploma in graphic design in 1979, gaining a pass " With Credit"

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Decision wars...

I left college with a dilemma,I had a portfolio of very illustrative graphic design work and still had a strong desire to paint rather than just create graphic design. I was uncertain whether to focus on self employed career as a freelance commercial artist or go for full time employment  as a graphic designer? As destiny (Or the Force) would have it, the first mind blowing, special effects laden "Star Wars" film had recently been released to critical acclaim and was breaking all box office records! (I first saw this with quadraphonic sound at the Leicester Square Odeon whilst skiving off an Art college trip to the National gallery ) I'd also  fortuitously discovered a touring  exhibition of fantastic artwork by the countries top Science Fiction illustrators of the day, held at Salisbury Arts Center. Heavily inspired by what I had seen I followed my gut feeling, deciding to try and become a Sci - Fi book cover artist!

 

First break...from Steve Abbis

Several months later with a selection of  Sci - Fi illustration work created at home snd added to my portfolio I headed to London. Several trips later and months of interviews showing the portfolio to Hamlyn, Corgi, Granada,Penguin and every other book publisher's art department in London, I eventually got a break. 

I managed to secure an interview with Arrow Books art director Steve Abbis. Apparently his initial interest had been  ignited by a photo of a Sci- Fi illustrations I'd sent him months earlier unfortunately without a name or address attached to it  ( This was created for a graphic's project at Art college entitled  " Do UFO's exist" ) Totally surprised to find the original artwork in my portfolio, Steve very kindly gave me my first Science Fiction cover commission entitled  " SOVEREIGN" by the author R.M. Meluch and so kick started my illustration career. Steve also helped secure me a place on the books of Sarah Brown Artist Agency based in Ealing in London. This was a stable of acclaimed top Science Fiction artists of the time like Peter Elson and Fred Gambino among several others. Sarah Browns specialized in Science Fiction book covers and so I finally started to receive reasonably steady work.

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Moving on up...

After several years working with the Sarah Brown  agency and with a need  to expand my repertoire of work beyond Sci - Fi  book covers, i managed  to move to one of central London's top Artist agencies, Meiklejohn Illustration based in Covent Garden. Meiklejohn worked with most of the major advertising agencies in central London at the time like Satchi & Satchi,  Feref, JWT as well as poster publishers like Athena Shops , and a few book publishers. As luck would have it I'd turned up for an interview at Meiklejohn with a portfolio of Sci Fi work...just as their main Sci Fi Artist had left the agency. Having been taken on by Meiklejohn was a  big step forwards and immediately gave me a more constant flow of much better paid advertising work.

I also continued doing some book cover work at Meiklejohn and was surprised on one occasion to receive a fax letter from the writer David Harsent, impressed with an  illustration I'd produced for his best selling crime thriller " Conjure Me " (Written under his pseudonym of Jack Curtis) The artwork an eerily lit white clown face helped secure the author and Bantham Press, a nomination for the Publisher Association's  Book Jacket of the year award in 1992. David Harsent who had also been an art director wrote " I'm judging the book jacket against literally thousands, when I say its' one of the best I've ever seen"  it was great just to get such a nice compliment like this and find out the book jacket had been nominated.

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Plains, Trains, Sci - Fi  & melting fob watches... 

The wide variety of work I received from Meiklejohn and a need to keep work flowing in taught me to paint a whole different array of everyday subject matter, whilst still being the agencies main Sci - Fi artist when this work  came in. As well as creating artwork for BP, Texaco, Athena Posters, GEC, Glaxo Cline, Friends Provident, Jim Henson Productions, pop bands Blur and B12, Carling Black Label, LLoyds Bank and many more. I was also lucky enough to work on some film posters, this included the poster artwork for two successful films: Comedy film "Trains Planes & Automobiles" staring Steve Martin & the late John Candy as well as the poster for James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd's  underwater Sci Fi blockbuster action hit  "THE ABYSS"

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