School days...

Ever since I can remember I have been told I was good at drawing & painting and clearly enjoyed creating pictures as a child. So it's no surprise this was also one of my favorite subjects at School along with a lifelong interest in Space Exploration, ignited by the 1969 then recent, Apollo moon landings. With my father in the forces my education was a lesson in geography, I went to  various schools in the UK before attending  BFPO schools first  in Germany then back in the UK, followed by two very memorable years in Hong Kong, back to England, onto Germany for a year before finishing my final school year in Jersey in the Channel Islands where my parents hail from. 

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

 

Salisbury Art college & graphics...

After school further education in a creative field was an obvious choice for me. With my parents now living near Salisbury for a final army posting, the Art College in Salisbury seemed the ideal place to go. So in the blazing summer of 1976 and with no Illustration courses available at Salisbury, I embarked on the next best thing, a three year graphics design course. I really enjoyed the whole Salisbury Art college experience and  being creative every day and completed 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  bit of a dilemma,  basically having a portfolio of what was very illustrative graphic design work and still with a strong desire to paint rather than just create graphic design. I was uncertain  whether to focus on becoming  a freelance commercial artist or look for a solid job as a graphic designer? As destiny (Or the Force) would have it, the very first mind blowing, special effects laden "Star Wars" film had recently been released to critical acclaim and was breaking all box office records! (I saw this with quadraphonic sound at the Leicester Square Odeon whilst skiving off an Art college visit to the National gallery ) Around this  time I fortuitously discovered a touring  exhibition of fantastic artwork by the countries top Science Fiction illustrators of the day, held at Salisbury Arts Centre. Heavily inspired by what I had seen  I followed my gut feeling, deciding to 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 added to my portfolio I headed to London. After several trips' 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'd  managed to secure an interview with Arrow Books art director Steve Abbis. Apparently his initial interest in me had been  ignited by a photo of a Sci- Fi illustrations I'd sent him unfortunately without a name or address on it! ( This was created for a graphic's project at Art college entitled  " Do UFO's exist" ) So being totally surprised months later to finally 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 for 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 some reasonably steady work.

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Moving on up...

After several years working with the Sarah Brown  agency I felt I needed to expand my repertoire of work beyond Sci - Fi  book covers, and  managed  to move to one of central London's top Artist agencies, Meiklejohn Illustration based in Covent Garden. Meiklejohn were renown for working 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 full of Sci Fi work... just as their main Sci Fi Artist had left the agency. Being taken on by Meiklejohn was a good step forwards and immediately gave me a more constant flow of much better paid advertising work.

 

I continued doing some  book cover work at Meiklejohn and was surprised on one occasion to receive a fax letter from the well known 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 of 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 previously 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" ...Its not often I'd ever received any awards so it was great just to get such a nice compliment  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 was receiving from Meiklejohn and a need to keep busy  taught me to paint a whole different array of everyday subject matter, as well being the agencies main Sci - Fi artist when this work did come 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 film poster artwork for two fairly 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  and successful hit  "THE ABYSS"

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