Growing up in the shadow of the city steelworks, Cardiff born Rob Lee had a love of fine art from an early age....

Self taught, Rob moved to London as a nineteen-year-old where his political cartoons caught the attention of IPC magazines, one of Europe’s biggest publishers. The next two decades of his life were spent creating cartoons for children’s comics such as the Beano, Buster and Whizzer and Chips before eventually moving into the world of animation.

After working on the Superted series Rob began originating his own cartoon concepts as well as developing cartoons for a wide range of clients. Rob’s name is credited on over two hundred episodes of Children’s TV including Fireman Sam, the Shoe People, Joshua Jones and others.


His work has received two BAFTA nominations while one of his cartoon designs, Digswell the Dog, had the distinction of being adopted by the Young Astronauts Council before being painted on a Soyuz Rocket and launched from Russia. After orbiting earth for five days the rocket landed in the waters off Seattle on Thanksgiving Day. In recent years, between cartooning and writing novels, Rob has occupied himself with his love of painting.


Rob spends his time between Cardiff, London and Florida with the latter being the inspiration for his crime novels and many of his beach paintings.

"After the heat, the first thing that hits you on arrival in Florida is the light. With its largely unbroken sunshine and intense summer storms, the gulf state is a constant source of material ."

Primarily an acrylic artist, Rob also enjoys oil, pastel and latterly, the artistic possibilities offered by digital technology . His subject matter is an eclectic mix of contemporary, abstract, landscape and hip hop images.