Jan Szymczuk
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I began drawing and scribbling as soon as I could grasp a pencil, and used up about every bit of scrap paper I could get my hands on. My art education began in earnest at St. Robert's Catholic School in the market town of Morpeth, Northumberland. Having discovered new drawing techniques (usings messy hands/fingers, water paints and crayons!) I then moved onto a secondary modern school, namely St. Benet Biscops Catholic School in Bedlington, Northumberland. It was here that I learned to refine my earlier attemps at drawing, took my CSE and GCE's (gaining top marks in art) .
I then spent two years at King Edward VII Grammer School in Morpeth, Northumberland, where I took O and A levels again in Art (passed all with top marks). I then moved onto a Foundation course in Graphic design at Newcastle College, it was here that I really developed most of everything I do today, live portraits sketching, design concepts, graphics in different mediums. The most important thing I learned was simple how to use my imagination to come up with new ways of looking at things. It must be said that I did gain acceptance onto two BA course at two Art colleges, Newcastle and Liverpool but things being what they were at the time, I decided that a paying job was more important (regrets!) than a budding college career. I then joined the Metropolitan Police Service in London where thankfully I am still employed, doing what I seem to be good at, namely working as a Police Artist and have been doing so for about the past 23 years. My favourite medium is still pencil, I find I can achieve such a degree of detail that my sketches are often mistaken for a photographs. I also take great pleasure in drawing cartoons and characatures of subjects in both colour pens or simply in black ink. It is through these cartoons that I became known far and wide as 'Boris' In retouching and restoring old photographs, I tend to use Adobe Photoshop together with Paintshop Pro which between them handle just about everything you would ever want to do in photographic work or image enhancement. Heres hoping you get in touch soon. |
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