About Me

Just a few random musings about my journey towards creating the paintings and drawings you can find in the Gallery. Some of it may even make sense, at least to those of a certain age.

I was born in England when it was still in black and white, a few months before The Doctor first appeared in his TARDIS and JFK went to Dallas.

Growing up, I quickly learned which end of the pencil was supposed to go on the paper (it's the pointy bit; who says you can't learn from the net?) and spent a lot of time drawing reasonable approximations of cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Donald and Daffy Duck and my great favourite, Wile E. Coyote. I also spent a lot of time falling off my bike, falling out of trees and getting covered in mud while trying to save penalties – you know, all the things kids used to do that Health and Safety have decided are far too hazardous these days. I even used to play conkers without needing a safety net, goggles and full hazmat suit while standing in a concrete underground bunker three miles from my opponent - sorry, fellow competitor.

Then the world tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You can't make a living doing that, do something 'useful' instead.” In fact, I think it was my careers adviser at school who said that and probably from the other side of a big desk, while feigning interest in what he was actually saying. The stifled yawn was a bit of a giveaway.

So, off I went into the world of 'proper jobs' and spent the next couple of millennia (or so it felt) discovering the joys of earning money, spending it unwisely and accumulating a portfolio of bills as society expects. I was in at the start of the home computer evolution, watched on in horror at the slow, lingering death of common sense (not to mention the increasing misuse of the apostrophe and the really annoying habit of punctuating every sentence with the word 'like' - oops, that’s the editor in me coming out) and continued to shake my head in disbelief at how much extra traffic the school run causes.

Then, about 2006, I went to an arts and crafts show at the NEC in Birmingham, looking for something that didn't involve logic, commuting and arguing over first pick on next year's holiday rota. Armed with my extensive knowledge of pencil usage, I discovered the pastel pencil art of Colin Bradley and rekindled my enjoyment of scribbling on paper. Once I discovered that some of those scribbles actually made pictures (if you squinted a bit, held it at arm's length and didn't try too hard to work out what it was supposed to be), I never looked back. The rest, as they say, is… still ongoing, actually.

In and around all this, I’ve co-authored three books on space flight (and have several more coming up) and edited over 30 others on various aspects of the same subject, as well as other sciences. Add in the occasional part-time job to boost the coffers and quite frankly I’m surprised that I find time to eat or sleep some days!