Tim Packer studied commercial art in high school, graphic design at George Brown College, and continued to paint through the 1980s and 1990s while pursuing a successful career as a detective with the Toronto Police Service. By the mid-1990s, his painting had become the driving force in his life and in January of 2000 he left policing to pursue his art career full-time. Packer is an elected member and past President of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour and a former President of the Oshawa Art Association. He is a Senior Signature Member of the Canadian Institute of Portrait Artists and has sat on the Institute’s new member’s jury. His work has won numerous awards and has appeared in juried shows in Mexico, the United States, and across Canada.

Painting in watercolors and oils, Packer works in three very distinct styles. For commissioned portraits, he works quite realistically and is able to capture the very essence of the model. His watercolor landscape work is quite interpretive, relying on the abstract use of positive and negative shapes to give a unique perspective of the world around us. In oils, he paints the Canadian landscape in a bold style reminiscent of the Group of Seven. He is an active instructor, teaching a number of painting workshops across Canada for many organizations such as Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, The Toronto Watercolour Society, Loyalist College, and the Wellington County Museum and Archives, to name but a few. Packer has also been featured several times as the artist in residence at the McMichael Canadian Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, the "Spiritual Home of the Group of Seven." Packer’s work can be found in many private and corporate collections around the world.