I was born in Sydney 1943 and attended the public schools at Parramatta. My mother was an artist and professional dancer, my grandfather Jack Ricketts was an English born scenic artist for the live theatres.
My father was a bushman, a boxer and later a dancer. His parents were of Aboriginal, Chinese and Scottish decent. Painting was always a family past time.
In 1963 I bought a small farm at Londonderry on the outskirts of Sydney where I built a race horse training complex; meanwhile I worked both as a fencing contractor in the early mornings and a detail draftsman during the day.
In 1976 I opened an artist supply business in Penrith west of Sydney and started teaching and refining my painting techniques. In 1979 I started writing a how-to-paint book which was soon converted to video.
Those first 6 lessons are still available today in the updated and new DVD version.
Not enjoying city, life I dropped out, bought a property at Mullumbimby northern NSW then toured Australia for the next 20 years, while living in a converted school bus.
I painted thousands of pictures while demonstrating my techniques and selling tutorial videos. Being allergic to perfume, I shied away from galleries and art institutions preferring to please the general public with my colorful landscapes and deft manipulation of the brush.
While mostly painting in oils or acrylics I often resorted to using house paint on murals which were up to one hundred foot long. I have now retired and spend my days at Mullumbimby or in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
I now have the time for filming and refining my new series of tutorial DVDs.
