Who Am I?

Photograph by André Pattenden

My name is Jim and since February 2013 I have been drawing pictures for people on Microsoft Paint. My work can be found in the downstairs bathrooms of homes up and down the UK and even overseas and you may have seen it being worn on T-shirts at raves, steam rallies, the snooker or wherever people of high culture congregate.

I make music and art in a variety of mediums but I am, unfortunately, best known for my work as Jim'll Paint It (a name I chose as an edgy joke back when Operation Yewtree was dominating the headlines - not thinking, for a moment, that the project might take off as it has)

The premise is fairly simple. People on Facebook and Instagram send me requests such as "The Wu-Tang Clangers" or "Fred Dibnah knocking down Sauron's tower" and I then interpret their request using the Windows XP version of Microsoft Paint. People love pointing out to me that in some ways I was like the original AI and in response I nod and smile and somehow manage to not smash my head against the nearest wall.

I have been doing this for the better half of my adult life and the resulting art style is somewhat unique and, unlike AI, I only actually do the ideas I like. Which is bad news for the people asking but great news for the art itself. You may have grasped by now that I absolutely loathe AI to my core and never use it for any of the artwork or product shots on this website.

Because I also have to run a moderately successful e-commerce business I now run Windows XP from a virtual machine on a big shiny Macintosh computer. Sorry, purists! Watch this space though, this year I am going to be doing some work on an Amiga 500 as Jim'll D-Paint It.

I have a cat called Audrey, my favourite film is The Wicker Man (the proper one obviously) and I am a functioning Liquorice Allsort addict.