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A man who stood over six feet in height and wore his hair in a ponytail, he attended Heriot Watt College where his gifts as an artist were first noticed and where he received the Art Class Teacher's Certificate (1890) and subsequently the Art Master's Certificate. He was then appointed a part-time teacher of art at the College, and served in that capacity for about five years. On the transfer of the art department of the College to the Edinburgh College of Art, where Sutherland continued as a part-time teacher for the long period of twenty years, and taught in several departments in both day and evening classes. A member of the Society of Scottish Artists, where he was a regular exhibitor Sutherland also had several pictures accepted and hung at the Royal Scottish Academy intermittently between 1898 and 1929. Though his art covered a wide range, his landscape work being particularly good, he specialised in heraldic artistry, and in 1926 he won a silver medal for a series of bookplate designs he sent to the British Section of the Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Art in Paris. He was recognised as one of the leading heraldic artists in Scotland and for his distinguished services in this branch of art was appointed Honorary Artist to the Lyon Court in October 1927. It was in that capacity that he was selected to design all the armorial panels and all the stained glass windows in the beautiful Thistle Chapel, attached to St. Giles Cathedral. At the time of his last illness he was busy designing a Stallplate and Crest for the Thistle Chapel for Sir Herbert Maxwell, then the latest recipient of the honour of Knight of the Thistle. He also made all the heraldic cartoons for the Scottish War Memorial at the Castle in Edinburgh, and he was one of the artists presented to the King and Queen at the opening ceremony. In 1913 he was commissioned to design the great Seal of Scotland and in 1924 at the Wembley International Exhibition in London he executed a series of heraldic panels to decorate the Forestry Hall. He designed several book covers including his earliest for T P Ollason's collection of poetry 'Mareel' (1901). In 1913 at the RSA Annual Exhibition his exhibit (cat.557) was his design for the ECA Diploma, the first of which had been issued by at least 1911. At the 1915 RSA AX he exhibited his design for the ECA Certificate in Architecture (cat.604).