Born in Bristol and raised in the Somerset countryside, Mike Bartlett is currently a part-time artist. His earliest memories of art is drawing his favourite cartoons at an early age. After excelling in art throughout school he studied art at A-Level and completed a Foundation Art degree at university before attending the University of the West of England where he earned a Bachelors Degree in Web Design. He spent a few years after University freelancing as a web designer before, in 2015, returning to create art. He spent a few years working in acrylics painting characters from pop culture and selling the originals and prints at local craft fairs but in 2017 decided to change mediums to digital art. 

 

In digital art he found a new exciting medium that opened up the possibilities of much more creative and colourful art.  In late 2017 he created his first set of British wildlife images and found immediate success at local fairs selling prints and greetings cards. By early 2020 his portfolio had increased to 70 plus pieces of work with regular sales online and also in local high street shops and was now working as a full-time artist.

 

During the pandemic Mike stepped away from art due to a lack of selling opportunities. In late 2022 he started a part-time job in retail which he enjoys as a balance to his artwork which in 2023 he started again in his spare time.

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Today, Mike still lives in the Somerset countryside and works in his spare time creating realistic works of art, inspired by wildlife. He strives to create realistic pieces that are as close to life as possible, spending up to 80 hours on an individual piece to achieve the end result. 

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About how Mike's art is created.

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Mike's work is created using digital painting. The best way to describe what he achieves is to think of it as pen and paper in which he is hand-drawing all that you see, but instead of using a pen, he's using a Stylus and instead of the paper, it is a graphics tablet. It is a very similar process to a traditional painting when creating the work in that it starts with a sketch, next the base colours are added and then the layers of details are drawn on top just as many would do with paint.