 I was born in Harare, Zimbabwe (Salisbury, Rhodesia at that time), in the early spring of 1947. My father was a commercial artist and my mother was a window dresser and sign writer with Meikles (then the largest, and I think, only, department store in town). At a very young age, I displayed a talent and a love for drawing and painting.
When I was about five years old, my paternal grandfather died and we moved to Felixburg (this was a remote area on the old pioneer road, between Masvingo (Fort Victoria) and Chegutu (Enkeldoorn)- where my father took over the family farm (actually a cattle ranch of some 13000 acres, teeming with wildlife.) I reveled in my new life and loved to draw the animals and activities around me (the main form of transport was horses and our farm vehicles at that time were scotch carts and ox wagons), and as my father had taken up painting watercolours of wild life, and my mother was painting landscapes in oils and watercolours, I had plenty of encouragement, materials, subject matter and technical advice to hand.
When I left school aged 16, I worked for a while in game capture and hunting (game ranching-then in its infancy) and did my national service. When I was about 19 or so, I joined a graphic art and film studio in Harare, called Format as an apprentice, so I learned all about producing artwork for reproduction, animation,
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and some photographic and cinematographic skills, (a bit of everything, including illustration). After a couple of years, I moved to South Africa and began to work for Manley van Niekerk studios and then with Robb D Hinds film productions, in the early days of Irene film Studios! However, after a couple more years I moved on again and after some travel and adventure, settled in London where I worked in page layout and design on various publications within the IPC group for several years, before striking out on my own, as a freelance illustrator, using the contacts I had built up within IPC. Initially, I was doing mostly cookery and gardening illustrations. I went on to become a bit if a specialist in highly detailed packaging work, eg. wine, beer and spirits labels and boxes, as my technique is very small scale. (Detailed line work and tight watercolour is my forte.)
Over the years my technique and style have evolved and I moved to a farm in the west of Ireland in the mid 1980’s, to concentrate on my first love, natural history paintings and illustrations, but in between doing all the farm work, I have latterly found a bit of a niche for myself , doing illustrated maps. Over the years I have also developed an interest and I hope some skills and expertise in archaeological illustration, calligraphy, heraldry, and signwriting. Currently, my wife (who is a digital illustrator and photographer) and I, are putting together a series of illustrated maps on spec. So we hope you will wish us luck and please enjoy the website and don't hesitate to contact me regarding my availability for work etc. Thanks.
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