 Robinson completed a four-and-a-half-year manufacturing jewellery apprenticeship with Max Wilson in Palmerston North in 1973 and then worked with Roy Evans at Arcade Jewellers in Timaru.From 1978 to 1980, he attended Otago Polytechnic School of Art in Dunedin where he was tutored in painting by Bernard Holman, Tom Field and Walden Tucker.He graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts and returned to complete Honours in 1996.