Elected an Associate Member of the RCA in 2023; Full Member 2026
After a Foundation Course at Dyfed College of Art in 1982, I went on to study Technical Illustration in Swansea. The course included analytical drawing, measuring point perspective and life drawing, alongside the disciplines required to produce technical constructions, cutaways and exploded views of engines, vehicles, and the like. I also learned airbrushing and photo retouching.
On completion, I worked as a designer/illustrator for an advertising agency and was employed as a part-time lecturer in analytical drawing. I later worked as a life drawing tutor on the Foundation course in Swansea. I subsequently completed FETC and PGCE teaching qualifications.
I re-trained as a Graphic Designer gaining my BA(Hons) in 1997 and have been running my own design company, SIGGA Design Ltd. ever since. In 2011 I returned, part-time, to education to complete an MA in Visual Communication (Contemporary Dialogues). I taught various design and drawing disciplines for over ten years.
For all that time I have run or attended regular life drawing sessions, working in graphite, watercolour, pastels, or coloured pencils.
I have been painting portraits in oils for several years now and am constantly developing my style. One of the portraits in the set of nineteen I painted via Zoom during the Covid lockdown, was accepted for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London in 2021. I have since completed many commissions for portraits (both conventional and nude) from all around the world, making the most of the technology that has now become commonplace. My portrait of the poet David Hughes won the Neath Open Art competition in 2024.
Five years ago I began painting landscapes and still life and my close-up paintings of conkers and mussels have been widely exhibited.
In
addition, I am a keen writer and have written a large number of articles
about my work and other subjects published online via Medium
(https://medium.com/@draftsmann).
