I receive regular mails and PM's asking about what I do and how I got into this field. Instead of writing the same story over and over again, I thought I'd post a journal entry to make things easier for those interested..

Art is only one of the ventures I'm involved in. I own and I'm involved in a number of corporate enterprises and my days and very often my nights, are taken up running these businesses. I've chosen to structure my life this way simply because I make more money doing other things and I want to keep my art, FUN.
The sad reality is that an artist (even the best) will seldom get the financial or professional recognition he/she deserves outside their peer and family group. In order to be the best, an artist has to study for years, learn their craft and know their skills just as well as a good engineer or stockbroker knows theirs but sadly, art is seldom seen as a 'real job' and most artists, musicians, writers are generally seen as weirdo's or odd-balls.

No tears, shit happens.

I would love to do art full time and happily, I do earn good $'s when I get the time to paint. Unfortunately I find that finding the balance between relying on art to earn one's keep and loving doing it can be a tiresome tussle.

How did I get started?? Well, without going into every detail, I've drawn ever since I can remember and I always wanted to be a Disney animator. Unfortunately, in the 70's and living far away from the USA this was an impossible, impractical dream. Recognising this, I taught myself animation and became intimately involved in Computer Generated graphics - when they pretty much started in the very early 1980's. I released my first CG animated short film in December of 1985 and through my involvement in Software development, CG and Animation, I grew my contact network and through this, I got to meet and know some of the doyens in Hollywood.

Although I stopped animating in 1999, it was though these good folk that I initially started doing small illustration pieces for some of the studios, related industries, individuals and finally for Lucasfilm etc. (BTW, I purposefully kept the projects small because by now I had other formal business enterprises I was involved in).

These days, I recognise that the upside of working on my art only when I choose to allows me to do better art generally because the earning pressure is off. This also means I can be very selective with my projects and although I still feel I have a long way to go, the body of work contained in this gallery and on my web site (www.markraats.com) is the result of my efforts.

Kind regards

MARK