I am mainly self taught and have been painting on and off for about 15 years, but decided to turn professional last year. Below is some more info about me and the work I do.

Unlike most wildlife artists, I do not travel the world to see animals in their natural habitat. Instead I spend a lot of time at zoos and wildlife reserves, preferring to get to know the animals. (I have friends who are keepers and let me go behind the scenes) This lets me understand the personality of the animal I am painting and then decide which background to put them into. I believe that like us animals probably dream of where they would like to be and I paint them in what I think would be their ideal surroundings, working from background photos supplied by friends who have been there and taken extra photos for me. I then sketch out my ideas and combine the two. I can usually tell buyers, where they can see the animal in the flesh and what their name is so that they can visit their chosen subject should they wish to.

Encaustic is a technique that has been around for approximately 5 thousand years and was used widely by the ancient Egyptians to do "soul portraits" for the dead. It was revived as an art/craft form over here about 10 years ago by a welsh artist who now runs a network of teachers to train people in this technique. I qualified in 2000.