My interest in art did not start at school. Back then I mainly did drawings and was taught technical drawing. It wasn’t until relatively recently I expressed a desire to learn about painting. Having attended a ‘taster’ evening at Jarrolds, a local store in Norwich, I signed up to undertake a years course at Art Academy East in 2020. Despite Covid I managed to complete the course. I didn’t just begin to learn about painting but also to appreciate art generally. I will always be grateful to Claire Frances Smith and her colleagues at the Academy for opening up this new world of art. Since then, I’ve participated in plein air art events and tried to develop my own style concentrating on oil painting and exploring other mediums such as pastels, acrylics, and water colours. I'm also a regular member of the Norwich Outdoor Painting Group that meet in Norwich City Centre every Wednesday to plien air paint in various locations whatever the weather. My subject matter is wide ranging from rural landscapes based in Norfolk/Suffolk, to gritty nocturnal paintings in urban settings, and portraiture. I’m keen on exploring textures contained, for example, in weathered buildings or ageing machinery that grow old gracefully. The artists I regularly follow is Peter ‘The Street’ Brown and Rob Pointon, both well established plein air painters, and the portrait/figure artists David Cobley and Jonathan Yeo.