From the time I could hold a pencil, all I ever wanted was to be an artist, something my mother supported, but my high school principal wasn’t so keen on. He counselled me that art was there for those who lacked academic ability and that there were no jobs in art.
The fact was, I’d been very much focused on spending my time in the art room and my grades in other subjects had been in freefall as a result. However, being a typical strong headed adolescent, I took my principal’s well-intentioned advice as a challenge and, for a number of reasons, left school at 15, going in search of work as a junior in the advertising industry. A few months later, I got a job at a Sydney based animation company, Film Graphics. It had turned out there were indeed jobs in art out there and that I had been lucky enough to secure one of them. I began working in the darkroom but within six months had moved on to be an assistant animator and became a fully-fledged animator at just 17.
It was a wild time in those days and I was lucky to be surrounded by the most extraordinarily talented people I've ever met. It was also a time when computers were first making their presence felt in animation and I developed quite a reputation as an early pioneer in the new area of motion graphics.
Throughout the years, I've found returning to working with oils on canvas a wonderful escape from the digital realm. However, with regard to drawing, I have become so used to working on my Wacom Cintiq monitor that almost all my drawing for the past 15 years has been done digitally (much to people's frequent disbelief when they see the drawings). The whole nature of working on the Cintiq is so similar to the old-style animation desk that it feels totally natural to me.
In recent years, I've also become involved in writing children's novels and illustrating picture books. In 2018 I partnered with another writer to set up an early childhood literacy initiative, Storytime Lane.
I've taught drawing and animation through the NSW TAFE system and have been commissioned to produce online courses in special effects animation.When I became a father, I found it difficult to continue to find time for my painting alongside my animation work. But now my kids are older and changed circumstances have me once again finding time to pick up a paintbrush.