The animals of our planet have always been of huge
fascination to me for as long as I can remember. I grew up
watching any wildlife documentary on television I could, especially
those with David Attenborough (whom I met in 2006 - please click here
to see why).
Since leaving school, where there wasn't a great
deal of time spent on teaching wildlife art, I haven't received any
formal training in drawing and everything I have now learnt has been
self-taught. One thing I do recall learning at school, and has
stuck with me ever since, was to try and avoid the use of an eraser
unless absolutely necessary. With very detailed wildlife art such
as mine, you can't afford to make too many corrections as this does
affect the surface of the paper and can make my style of high contrast
art more difficult. This childhood obsession with perfectionism
probably had a large effect on my current style and desire to create the
most lifelike drawings possible.
My style of wildlife art is to try and bring the
animal to life on the page and make the image far more three
dimensional. Choosing to specialise in black and white
illustration came at an early age when I would always feel a perfectly
good drawing had been ruined by painting it! Photographing and
observing wildlife when it is sunny provides the best opportunity to see
how strong light falls on the animal and how it accentuates its body
shape and musculature. This is evident in my wildlife art in the
way that I try to attain strong shadows and highlights in areas of the
body where sunlight is strongest.
I hope you enjoy viewing my wildlife art and paleoart
on this website and if you have any comments then you are very welcome
to pass these onto me at enquiries@artvarc.co.uk.
If you would like to buy prints, originals or request a commission then
please proceed to one of the following pages:
Wildlife
Art Prints
Wildlife
Art Originals
Wildlife
Art Commissions |
