N E I L C O L E - A r t I S T -

I left my 'Art & Design Foundation Course' in 1989, highly confused, apparently about to embark upon a career in photography, a subject I had little interest in. Something had gone very wrong. I loved drawing, had yet to find my feet with paint and although I had quite enjoyed taking some B + W stills, I knew it was not for me. My tutors had dismissed my drawing style. I felt extremely disillusioned.
So, I didn't accept my place on the photography course and decided to draw regardless. Ignoring the previous year's experience entirely, I set about the task of teaching myself to draw... again - from scratch.

So, truly penniless, I worked part time and began drawing some local views, inspired by a book of copper plate engravings and woodcuts. Of course I did not know how these drawings had been made, just that they were black + white, and that I was quite nifty with a pen. I tried to recreate the effects with my trusty rotoring. Before long I managed to sell a couple of my local views (all of Corbridge where I grew up), and started to get commissions: all B + W pen & inks, based on the extremely detailed faux 'copperplate' technique I was developing.

On the strength of much commissioned work, I became self employed with the aid of 'Enterprise Allowance'. After a year of drawing more houses and dogs than I care to recall, I was covering my living costs but had little to reinvest in the next step. I needed to get prints out, but this was still a time when printing was hideously expensive. Completely fed up of drawing domestic life and frankly pen & ink, I changed direction entirely and began a physics degree.

For two years I immersed myself in numbers & formulas. I did produce some art however. I started my first oil paintings for a small 'Doctor Who' fanzine called 'Timelines'. These proved popular, and one of my covers appeared in 'Doctor Who Magazine'. It was a great way of developing technique in a new medium, although the paintings now look very primitive!!

With the success of the 'Timelines' art I decided to produce my own fanzine. 'Isis' featured my own comic strip work throughout and was fun to do. It received a glowing review nationally, in the magazine 'DWB' soon to become 'Dreamwatch'. Whilst all this was really positive, I still needed to find my own distinctive artistic voice. Change was around the corner...