A PUB sign artist who worked for St Austell Brewery is now running his own successful business.

Andrew Grundon, 56, of Signature Signs, was a signwriter for the brewery which has its headquarters in St Austell.

Andrew hand paints signs and each one takes an average of eight days to complete.

His paintings are in demand around the world and, as well as under taking work for breweries and pubs, Andrew has recently painted a pub sign for Hollywood actor Paul Rudd.

Andrew said: “It’s an interesting collaborative process with the client to make sure they get what they want from a sign.

“The one I did for Paul Rudd, he had a portrait of his father who he was very, very fond of.

“He was an expert on the Titanic and used to take people from America to visit the Titanic museum in Belfast.

“Paul wanted his father painted as Captain Smith from the Titanic in his uniform. He also had some other interesting ideas which enhanced the final result.”

Andrew, from Wadebridge, said his biggest passion is creating the perfect painted sign for a pub: “I often re-paint pub signs and each time I do it I try and make them more detailed and better than they were before.

“I think that pub signs are starting to come back. They had been dying off, but there seems to have been a resurgence lately.

“I’ve always admired pub signs for their artistic merit – I don’t think people always realise how much work and detail goes into them.”

Andrew is no fan of AI (artificial intelligence) when it comes to creative work.

He said: “It’s a great tool for surgical processes and number crunching and analytical work but when you start trying to use it for creative work it’s universally destructive.

“It’s artists who have learnt how to paint or take good photographs, they are having their images taken and altered by a computer and chucked back out again.

“You might get something that on the surface looks quite attractive but there is a soul and integrity that is missing.”