He combined working as a Freelance Illustrator and an Art Lecturer at Hounslow College.
Relocating to the West Country in the late eighties, he taught at Millfield Summer School, The Blue School, and Strode College. John now lives in Wookey Hole, nr Wells, He mainly paints in the evocative Somerset Levels and Mendip Hills, preferring a direct plein-air approach and aiming to capture a sense of immediacy and place.
John has been a very successful artist exhibiting in solo, group and open exhibitions. He has been published in The Artist, and The Artist & Illustrator. Last Autumn John received national recognition winning first prize in the Sunday Times watercolour competition.
"I like the freshness and vitality of watercolour, and the fact that, to be successful with the medium, you must have a plan, a vision for the painting and work quickly. I love to go off for the day, to wander in the hills and set up my easel and paint.
Usually, the qualities that attract me to a particular subject are the colour and light. I stand in front of these subjects in awe. I get caught up in them, in their beauty and mood, and this inspires an emotional response. It is not always the big landscape scenes that are the most impressive. I often find something on a more intimate scale and that, because of the play of tones, and colours, is just as exciting. I don't think I must paint churches, or trees or fields, it is always something about the interaction of shapes, light and colour. I am wandering about and suddenly the landscape seems to fit somehow - I can visualise it as a painting. Then, in painting what is there, I try to be true to the medium as well as the subject. The result depends on the combination of medium and subject, filtered through my perception and response.
My real joy in painting is when I go out and produce something on the spot that somehow captures the moment, the mood and comes alive"