Q: Tell us a little bit about your childhood?
I tended to be the tallest in class which was good and bad in equal measure. We moved around quite a lot, mainly the South of England so I think I ended up going to about 11 schools.
Q: Where do you live?
I’ve lived in the Georgian city of Bath in South West England for the last 12 years or so, the longest I’ve lived in any one place.
Q: What made you want to be a professional artist?
I really don’t remember a time when i wasn’t drawing or painting. I have memories of being 4-5 and scribbling on anything I could find. Being able to do something you love for a living is such a rare thing, I’m not sure I ever really considered that I would get to a point where i would be able to do it myself.
Q: Where do you live?
I’ve lived in the Georgian city of Bath in South West England for the last 12 years or so, the longest I’ve lived in any one place.
Q: What made you want to be a professional artist?
I really don’t remember a time when i wasn’t drawing or painting. I have memories of being 4-5 and scribbling on anything I could find. Being able to do something you love for a living is such a rare thing, I’m not sure I ever really considered that I would get to a point where i would be able to do it myself.
Q: Are you self-taught or did you go to college?
I spent a small amount of time at college many moons ago but it just wasn’t for me so I left pretty quickly. I chose to do a graphic design as it was the only course that had an element of illustration, it was either that or foundation art or technical illustration, neither of which really appealed to me. Of course I was pretty disappointed to find that the illustration side was pretty thin on the ground and a bit useless so i dropped out and tried to make it on my own, since then I’ve basically picked up stuff along the way.
I had a really big turning point when I discovered how much using computers for creative work had progressed about 8 years ago. My only previous experience of computers was at college and their first computer room, 5 Mac classics hooked up to a basic printer and running Photoshop V2. My over-riding thoughts at the time were ‘this will never catch on’. Since then of course everything had moved on and when I got my hands on Painter and a Wacom tablet I was hooked. I taught myself Photoshop, a bit of Illustrator, learnt some html and Dreamweaver and landed a web design job which paid the way while I improved my technique and gained more understanding of other software, which allowed me to go out on my own about 6 years ago.
Read More at Coates and Scarry
http://www.mostlywanted.com/Coates and Scarry
