I graduated from Leicester Polytechnic in 1992 with a BA (Hons) degree in Fine Art. I have spent most of my art career working as a freelance illustrator and surface pattern designer creating designs for products including greetings cards, wall art, homeware, stationery and more. Represented by the Bright Art Group (for digital art) my designs have been licensed by several publishers and manufacturers worldwide including Creative Tops, Lovelane, Otter House, Jean Marie Creations, Quire Designs, RGB Stone and appeared in several high street stores including Sainsburys and Dunelm Mill. My recent paintings are a fusion of fine art, illustration and surface design with an emphasis on texture, pattern and colour. I have thoroughly enjoyed creating digital artwork over the last 10 years but you cannot beat the textures created with physical paint and a brush. I am excited by exquisite colour combinations and I favour muted palettes with a flash of something vibrant over primary colour, a bit like music and my preference of the minor scale over the major. For me, colour can totally make or break an image even if the composition is perfect. Illustration and surface design has taught me there are no limits with painting, no boundaries of scale or perspective. My inspiration often comes from a single colour, shape or pattern which I transpose into a landscape or seascape either real or imagined, adding to the overall feel of layering, detail and texture. I often have very vivid dreams of an exact image that ends up being quite close to the finished design or painting.