I suppose capturing scenes from books started with the window paintings at university. Someone asked for Gandalf (I suspecte they thought I couldn’t do it), so I did it. In the 70’s there were some absolutely awful posters of Gandalf that didn’t capture his character at all. It is hard when everyone has their own image, but mine have generally been received well. The words from the book are ‘he seemed to grow tall and menacing’. For the Gollum one he is described as coming down the sheer cliff like a spider, head first. Frodo and Sam are hidden, watching him. Many of these, like the window paintings were meant to be short lived.
The first mural was probably a single colour scene, quickly painted on a shed side before covering it up to finish painting the shed. I also did abstract designs on my bedroom walls, as a teenager. The first house we bought, I painted an arch on one wall. The next house I painted the ceiling as a big top roof. I’ve been doing similar things on and off as requested. The ones above were for my grandson’s room, around when Finding Nemo came out and I had just been scuba diving for the first time.
I have always done odd cartoons and lots of posters and cards over the years as well. Later I made and painted theatre sets.