If you want to skip this bit and just look at the art, I would not blame you. However, as some kind of biopic is considered obligatory, it does allow me to briefly chart the course that brought me to where I am today.

It really started with painting bits of motorbikes. That is when I began to do celtic art anyway. Previously, I had messed about with an airbrush and used oil paints. It was very basic back then. I had no compressor for the airbrush and could only afford the odd can of compressed air. My main means of air supply was from a car tyre inner tube, using an old bicycle pump to inflate it. It took about half an hour to get a sufficient pressure. Then a couple of minutes spraying to deflate it. Progress was slow. Getting a compressor was a revelation, even the cheap and nasty one I first had. When buying my next compressor, I was informed that the previous one was good only for a doorstop!

Almost as soon as I got my first motorbike (in 1980 aged 17), I took bits off and painted them. For several years, my main canvas was the petrol tank and mudguard. Two of the bikes I painted appeared in shows and had articles in bike magazines about them. A painting of mine accompanied the second article. This was the first printed appearance of my art. Both bikes were covered in celtic patterns, as was the painting.

Click here to see some examples of my early work painted onto bikes

The techniques I used back then provided the groundwork for the way I work now. Previously, I would cut out stencils in masking film with a scalpel. The image sprayed on with an airbrush and details added with a paintbrush or technical pen. Now I create alpha channel masks in Photoshop and use them to colour in or alter areas of an image. The only real difference is, that the Photoshop masks can be used as often as I want. I well remember one set of masks that took three days to draw and cut out then 15 minutes to spray. After peeling off the petrol tank, the masks were unusable. (See the BSA tank in the gallery of bike pictues)

A common feature in some of my early artwork was Stonehenge. It was inevitable really. It has had a strong hold on me in my formative years. The Stones are only a few miles away. The school I went to was called Stonehenge school. The school badge was even of the Stones. I have been to many solstice and equinox celebrations there. Seen a full moon from within the circle itself. Watched the sun go up, the sun go down. Felt the wind and rain in the bleak old place. I remember the now departed festival with affection and a certain band in particular.

For several years, I worked as an architectural technician, surveying and drawing buildings. This got me using a drawing board and technical pens, which would later prove a useful discipline for doing celtic art. However, I wanted to do something more than draw existing buildings. The recession of the early nineties gave me the incentive I needed. Although I had been doing celtic art before, it was only the occasional piece. When work dried up it gave me the excuse to lock myself away and really start learning. A fair while later, I was ready and started approaching people with my art.

Much of what happened next can be put together by looking at my output of cards and books in the rest of this site. Early on, I was persuaded to buy an Apple Mac to produce art on. There are times when I just want to have a paintbrush, canvas and some paints, rather than screen, manual and frustration. Having said that, there are things that I can do now that I could not have managed without Photoshop and Illustrator.

Over the years I have obtained art books by a variety of people. There are the usual celtic suspects of Jim Fitzpatrick, Courtney Davis and George Bain of course. I also feel the need to credit some of the other artists who have either influenced or impressed me in one way or another: Patrick Woodroffe, Alphonse Mucha, Edward Burne-Jones, J.W. Waterhouse, William Holman Hunt, Roger and Linda Garland, Brian Froud, Alan Lee, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, Chris Achilleos, Jim Burns, and Berni Wrightson among others.

That will do for now. The pictures can do the rest of the talking.

© Chris Down 2007