Artist Profile

My work presented here are pen and watercolour sketches from some of my favourite places along my travels, including York and Venice.

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Born in Yorkshire, I am both an architect and artist, living and working in the beautiful historic City of York.

I first trained at the Canterbury School of Art and Design, which introduced me to a variety of other art departments, skills, artistic disciplines and to my love of architecture, art and Italy. Drawing was an integral part of my study, particularly sketching and directly observing architectural and other built environments as well as nature and life drawing.

I am inseparably an architect and an artist, and I am constantly observing my surrounding environment and I always carry a sketchbook and camera around with me.

I often stop to observe interesting buildings and features when I walk around, always looking up and often spotting a detail, as others may walk on by, seemingly unaware of their surroundings.

I must think with a pen in my hand. My favourite medium at work and in art are drawing pens, I love the immediacy of the medium and the definitive mark-making and the decisiveness of the pen stroke, when committing pen to paper.  There is always a risk factor when using pen directly and you must constantly adapt when drawing and evolve and change with the process, just like being an architect; I cannot take my building down and start again!  If I have time, I usually prefer to apply watercolour over my pen strokes.

I love nothing better than to visit both new and familiar places in the UK and abroad, where I sketch and paint and observe and absorb myself in my surroundings.

It is only then that you truly concentrate on a place by looking and studying.

I never forget the place where I sat and passed the time and sketched and painted.

The concentration required in this process to capture a place on paper commits the details to memory better than any photograph and stays with you forever.