Since the age of 11 i've had a great love for painting the Australian lanscape. My story starts in South Western Queensland as a 10 year old, living in a small country town Dulacca. I'd call myself your normal 10 year old boy, playing sports, yabbying down at the creek and riding around on horses. In April 94, well i'm pretty sure it was April. I was eagerly anticipating a school camp (as any 10 year old does). This camp was nothing out of the ordinary, a cultural camp with my school mates at Surat (resting place of the famous Cobb & Co) full of the great things kids like to do... belt making, drama, screen printing, oil painting, wood working. You name it, we did it. I remember walking down to the creek on a cold morning near the end of camp with the rest of my assigned campers. We were given some paper and a pen and were asked to draw what we saw. So i did. Then we went back to the hall and were given some paints, a palate and a brush... now we had to paint it. So I did. It turns out it was pretty damn good for a 10 year old. So dad had it framed and we gave it to mum for mothers day a few weeks later. I didn't think much of it, I figured it was just a normal painting. But mum knew different, so she arranged for me to have some lessons by a local artist of Dulacca Gussy Henderson. She was a lovely old lady who had lived in Dulacca for a long time, that's about all I knew, and had probably painted for most of her life. A very gentle, authentic character and it came out in her painting. So a couple of months later (it must have been after July, because I was 11 by this time) I started my tutorial lessons with Gussy.
I remember mum wanted to pay her for her troubles, but she refused to take any money. I think it ended up being $10 a lesson. After a few months of lessons I'd started to develop my style, some skills and a lot of knowledge. I was also creating a little gallery in the house, so i'd get them framed by Gussy's husband and started selling some.

The first paintings I sold were to my grandparents basically for pocket money, but looking back on it, $50 was a lot for a kid. I also started entering my paintings into local art shows, I had some stiff competition back then but I usually came out with a prize of some sort. In a 2 year peroid of 1995-96 I accumulated about 2 dozen traditional landscape oil painting awards and plenty of vouchers. Development and knowledge for traditional oil painting. In the next 12-18 months I would also attend tuition classes with several other well known artists (unfortunately I can't remember After several months of one on one tutoring, I was invited to attend group tuition classes at the Dulacca Memorial Hall with a Toowoomba artist John (sorry, I don't remember his last name). This class was held on a weekend once a month and had anywhere from 5 to 20 local artists attend. Johns tuition really put me another step forward in terms of skills the names of these artists either). These lessons opened my eyes to more styles and mediums and I then broadened my skills to water colours and pastels. In 1996 I started high school at Miles State High School and aced all of my art studies there, then late that year our family made a very big move to the Sunshine Coast. I ended up completing my last 2 weeks of my first high school year at Burnside State High in Nambour, and thats also where I stayed. I felt my painting suffered a bit after moving. I had no tuition for a long time and because of school commitments and not to mention my new found love of surfing, my painting sat in the background and remained a hobby for a good 3 years. Somewhere in those 3 years I had attended an art lesson at Caloundra with a local Sunshine Coast watercolour artist. This guy was nice enough to invite me to paint with him down at his studio at the Wharf Mooloolaba, after that I lost touch. I managed to complete a handful of paintings in the time I was at high school including 4 Canarvon Gorge paintings which were inspired by a camping trip to the Queensland outback location with Palmwoods Coaches in 1996 just months before moving to the Sunshine Coast. The Canarvon Gorge inspired series is still a project i'm yet to complete. In the mean time I was sculpting a career in graphic design. At age 15 I had my forst graphic design traineeship with GT Print on the Sunshine Coast, the GT boys taught me im all there was to know about printing and pre press. By the time I got to university 3 years later I already had 3 years more graphic design & pre press experience than my student peers which gave me a huge advantage while studying for a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Design and minor in marketing. Ofcourse because of work and University commitments during this time, my painting suffered some more. At 19 I left GT Print to work and play in the US snowfields for several months and also visit relatives in Holland. This seemed to be the inspiration I needed to rebuild my passion for painting the Australian landscape. i think been away from home for a long period does that to you. I returned from my travels refreshened and ready to start over. I had only just started looking for work and I had several graphic design job offers thrown my way and simply had to choose which one I liked best. I was now working full time as a graphic / web designer and doing a little bit of freelance work on the side. In January 2006, at 22, I decided he had enough experience and drive and I set some goals then started what is now known as Red Lion Design . Having 7 years experience in the graphic design & printing & website development industry and atleast 3 more years than any of my university peers, i'm quietly confident about my career in the industry.
Starting RLD has now given me the freedom to set aside time to paint almost when ever I like. So with my girlfriend Alex and friends that's what I do a couple of days a week.
Admitedly, some of my most recent works have a more defined and mature style about them. I think this is because of the lack of tuition and other artists influences, I have been almost forced to further develop my own.