Tom Godfrey

When did you first become interested in art?

At School, when I had some success around about grade 8. I dabbled on and off, but it was only when I started teaching and I had to design covers for athletics programmes etc, that the cartoon bug really bit.

What style of art do you use most?

Photo realism with my traditional art (wildlife and landscape paintings), but I am a lot freer with the sketches and cartoons.

Cigarettes Can Kill

Has your style changed from when you first began as an artist?

I draw better now and am hopefully a little looser in my execution, although I still get caught in the detail.

What medium do you use?

Pastels, acrylic and pencil, although laterly, digital art has become my favourite. I use Corel Painter and a Wacom graphics tablet.

S Fish 3

What made you choose that medium?

I’ve always loved gadgets and I taught both art and computer literacy and so this was a logical blending of the two.

Do your ideas come from life or imagination?

50/50 My “serious” wildlife and landscape paintings come from life, whereas my cartoons and fantasy paintings are purely from my imagination. I sometimes create purely imaginative backgrounds for my pastel animals. Snow Leopard Dreamtime and White on White are examples of these.

How do you choose your images and colours?

Camera for wildlife ref while colour choices for the others are mostly intuitive.

Behemoth

Who is your favourite artist?

Bateman for acrylics. Many pastel artists. I think Ryan Church’s digitally created concept designs, are brilliant. (He designed many of the scenes for ILM and George Lucas and the star wars trilogy.) Zapiro (South African) is my favourite cartoonist.

What is your favourite piece of work by yourself?

I have many I like for different reasons, but I have a particular emotional attachment to, “The Ball” a pastel I did of myself and Dexter, who is besotted with that little round plastic sphere.

The Ball

How much time (on average) does it take to complete a work?

15hrs

How well do you take criticism?

If it is constructive and I agree with it -quite well

What do you do to overcome a ‘block’?

Take a line for a walk and see what emerges. Many of my digital fantasy pics start out that way.

How do you know something is ‘finished’? Is it easy to walk away?

No -I still tend to “overcook” my paintings

Have you had exhibits in galleries?

watch this space…coming soon

Yeeehaaaa

Have you any exhibits in galleries planned for the future?

Formative ideas but no solid plans yet.

What are your plans for the future?

To be a versatile, imaginative and sought-after artist and to sell my works for ridiculously high prices yeehaaa!

What advice would you give new artists?

Follow your HeART. Have a day job to pay the bills, but don’t let that take all your time. Keep enough energy for the real work, which will make your soul sing.

To see more of Tom’s great work, please visit his site at http://www.tomgodfrey.com