Farrell, who grew up in a small town where there were few opportunities for formal art education, began drawing on his own at a young age and through intense study of the great artists he found in library books began to nurture his innate talent. He writes of his younger years, “Looking at great paintings always excited me and by visiting museums [and] studying numerous art books…I gradually began to increase my artistic understanding,” which led Farrell to teach himself to paint with oils in the late 1980’s and then eventually to attend a painting workshop in New Mexico in the early 1990’s where he met numerous professional artists, who inspired him to a full-time artistic career.