"Working Horses"
Original Oil on Canvas 1997 private collection.

y grandfather picked me for an artist at the age of two and a half years.  I can still recall drawing the outline of a steam engine with crayon in my left hand and, by the time I got to the cab, I took over with my right hand to complete the drawing down that end. When I was three the family moved from Timaru to Christchurch where I spent my youth.

After completing high school  I went on to do a graphic art course at the Technical Institute, which I ditched half way into the second year, because the powers-that-be tried to bring in a change that meant I would have to do University Entrance English over again. My uncle Bruce Harvey, also an artist, got me my first job in the art field, so at the age of nineteen I moved to Auckland to become the layout artist for a women's magazine.

A few years later I met Judith, who was to become my wife and, while raising twin daughters, Diana and Vanessa, we got on with the task of producing and marketing my work. We have been working together now for nearly twenty five years, and there have been a few milestones along the way.

Sir Edmund Hillary at his book launch of "View From The Summit" being presented with one of the edition of my painting of Scott's Hut.  Present also is Sir John Ingram of The Antarctic Heritage Trust.  The painting entitled "I may be some time" was commissioned by the trust and released as a limited edition of 350 prints. 

For fifteen of these years I concentrated on pen and ink drawings done in millions of tiny dots. Each took hundreds of hours to complete and they ranged in topic from N.Z. wildlife and bush to turn-of-the-century colonial New Zealand.  During this time I sculpted my first bronze, a life sized study of a tuatara. Number one of this edition was presented to H.R.H. Prince Phillip by the World Wildlife Fund.

In 1995 I was greatly inspired by our performance in the America's Cup and was fortunate enough to be able to do the official Team New Zealand portrait of NZL32.

 

 

The late Sir Peter Blake presented with number 1 of the edition of my painting of Black Magic

 

 

Most recently I have been working in the field of New Zealand marine wildlife. While the edition of Black Magic was on the market we discovered that at the time there were somewhere in  excess of 60,000 who registered for tournament fishing on an annual basis. I had been gamefishing a few times, but it had never occurred to me to paint these magnificent  beasts.  Since I was a kid I had wanted to paint large game, but we didn't have any lions or elephants as part of our native wildlife.  Of course the marlin are our own big game, and I have been having a lot of fun with painting and sculpting them.