Biography

I was born in Twickenham in 1957, and have always been surrounded by artistic activity, which has also been stimulated by my fascination with natural history. During my early years I frequently visited a local falconer and sketched and painted his Peregrines and Goshawks. At school I experimented with landscapes and surrealism.

During the 1980s seascapes and surfscapes occupied me in Devon, Cornwall and the Channel Islands and a number were sold. I then took up natural history illustration full time and from 1991 to 1992 studied on the the 'A' level Art and Design course at Colchester Institute. Two years at the Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design followed, studying for the Higher National Diploma in Technical Illustration (Natural History), which I passed successfully. One of the course projects was for six plants painted for Dorling Kindersley, which were published in their Eyewitness Handbook 'Wild Flowers of the Mediterranean'.

Freelance work followed through 1994, including a commission to paint the four British falcon species, which as far as I know, still hang in The Falcon, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. In 1995 I completed a poster depicting twenty-five British wild edible fungi for The BBC Wildlife Magazine. A Master of Arts course in Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art, London, followed in the autumn. Later that year I was accepted by the Royal Horticultural Society for an exhibition of the eight orchids painted during the HND, and was awarded a Silver-Gilt Medal. In the same year I also exhibited edible fungi at the Botanical Society of the British Isles Exhibition Meeting at the Natural History Museum, London.

In July 1996, after a fractured skull, it became impossible to continue with the MA at the Royal College of Art. Later that year I completed a second BBC Wildlife Magazine commission for both edible and poisonous fungi and received private commissions. In the same year came a fungii exhibition at the Royal Horticultural Society's 'Fungus 100', a centennial celebration of the foundation of the British Mycological Society. I then began work on thirteen orchid illustrations for a joint exhibition with other artists at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, as part of one of Kew's Orchid Festivals.

In 1997 I undertook two orchid illustrations which were used by English Nature, and exhibited the thirteen orchids at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, from March until July.

Early in 1998 came a second commission from the BBC Wildlife Magazine, a poster of twenty-three of the more common British orchids. Later the magazine published a single fungi illustration.

During 1999 I worked on private commissions.

In 2000 I completed a large illustration of a Cymbidium, and during the rest of the year continued with private commissions and field trips to Kent, South Wales, the fens of Suffolk and Norfolk, Buckinghamshire, and Colonsay for orchid reference material during the summer.

In 2001 I illustrated Pyramidal Bugle for the frontispiece of the Flora of Assynt.

2001-2005: private commissions. It was during 2005 that digital photography began to increasingly take up my time.

In 2006 one of my Lady's Slipper Orchid illustrations was used for the front cover of 'Deadly Slipper', a novel by Michelle Wan about mystery, murder and orchid obsession in the Dordogne, published by Random House.

2006 - present: largely taken up with photography, only two commissioned paintings during this time.

All the images from the 1991 - 1999 and 1999 - 2009 galleries are now available as prints. Images from the Archive are not suitable for reproduction.