An early effort by our maestro, showing great promise and an interest in giant lizards

What is your background and how did you become an artist?

When I was seven years old, I took a shine to drawing… mostly pirate ships and Godzilla… now that I’m an adult, I am still drawn to adventure stories and mythological creatures. As a young man, I studied for many years to become an artist; I’m older now and still need to practice every day.

I usually carry two books at all times; one to read and one to draw in. For me, nothing is more fun than creating pictures for a story I’ve heard or read; especially if happens to be about pirates. Or giant lizards.

From Tom…

I work as an artist, designing artwork for children and adults. Grown-ups buy and hang my paintings in their homes, which is nice.

My wife and I have three children, they’re all grown up; our son is a journalist and our twin daughters work very hard in college where they study fashion and interior design.

I live in Staten Island, which is in New York City. New York is a terrific place to see art and culture from all over the world, it also has the best bookstores. My house is not far from a wonderful zoo; it’s home to so many beautiful animals, including peacocks that are free to roam around. They’re surprisingly noisy birds, but you cannot hear them from my house.

When I am not creating artwork and reading books I like to collect comics and dinosaurs and paint little toy soldiers, and I still love Godzilla movies.

If you would like to be an artist someday, be an artist every day, starting today.