Wood studied painting and illustration at Goldsmiths College, London and later at the Royal College of Art, where he won a silver medal for zoological drawing. It is as an illustrator and printmaker of natural history that he became known. He was one of the few natural history artists whose work transcended the purely informative. As well as having illustrated a number of books on natural history, particularly reptiles and amphibians, he produced limited edition prints inspired by the exotic and unusual forms of the natural world.