I've been interested in art all of my life, gravitating towards cartooning from a very early age, after admiring Ken Maynard's, "Ned and his Neddy" cartoons published in the weekly Post magazine, I was also inspired by Eric Jolliffe, who published many books based on the outback and farm life with a variety of characters. I've never had any formal training in cartooning or art but just driven by a desire to draw and paint.
At 37 years of age, I became interested in greeting cards which seemed to be the perfect vehicle for my cartoons. After some unsuccessful submissions to major card companies, my partner and I, decided to publish them ourselves. That was the start of our Company, Publishing, Printing and Distribution of Greeting Cards which operated for 25 years. After ceasing to operate the business in 2013 we went to live in Bali. Returning to Perth in 2015, we retired down South East of Perth to Dwellingup.
Inspired by all the forest and nature around me and having an abundant amount of time on my hands, it got my juices going to pursue my love of oil painting again. Capturing the isolation and red colour of outback Australia, I use deep blues and red ochres, (which featured in many of my Australian style Christmas cartoons) to create vivid contrasts and enjoy working with palette knives and the impasto style to bring scenes to life. When beginning a painting I usually start with the sky and at that point I don't even know if there will be clouds in it or not. Lately I've been painting stormy skies for some reason. Maybe I just like the drama it brings to the paintings.
Now also starting to experiment with ocean scenes. For now, I'm just enjoying the freedom from commitments allowing me to paint and generally be creative.