Uniquely Beautiful Homeware & Art
by artist Phil Cook
Welcome to Phil's introduction.
Phil's artistic journey began at a young age, by the time he was 10, Phil had started adult oil painting classes at the local community centre. Here's a few of his paintings, still hanging in his parents house. The Thrush was his very 1st oil painting.
Phil says, he was deeply aware of his passion for art and creating. He passed his 0 level art a year early and achieved a grade A, he then passed his art A level, also a year early. After finishing school, Phil went onto Art College where he was on course to study Fine art at University.
At that time, you were required to take a general art & design, ordinary national diploma qualification, this then allowed you to go onto study a BA. During this Gen Art & Design course, Phil was introduced to the alchemy of film photography. It was at this point his plans for the future took a different path. Phil's now been a professional photographer for 25 years. If you'd like to see the quality of his work follow this link
A few years ago Phil decided to take some time out from his career and began a journey of rediscovery. He started to explore his own sensitivities and ideas. Instead of paint and a brush, Phil took the skills he'd learnt retouching his work as a photographer and started to paint digitally, using a wacom. During this process Phil started taking commissions for animal portraits. His very first dog portrait commission, just so happened to be from his longest standing photography client at M&S.
You can see some examples of Phil's portraits below :-
Phil was commissioned to paint an Australian Cattle dog for a client in Oz and on completion of the portrait, decided to deliver it in person. Phil had always wanted to go and explore Australia and he saw this as the perfect opportunity.
While in Australia Phil was commissioned to paint his first ever mural (30ft x 10ft). This was the first time since leaving college (25yrs) that Phil had picked up paint and a brush.
Phil's trip to Australia was an amazing journey of discovery, the way he describes it. During his stay he was given the opportunity of using a fully kitted workshop. Phil wasted no time in making the most of this opportunity and made his very first driftwood lamp.