Working outdoors gives a direct connection with nature and an essential way of seeing that can be carried back into the studio environment. All the sights and sounds, warm sun rays or chill breezes, flitting insects and bird song, are all right there, making their impression. Sketching is a vital part of this for me, making colour notes and sometimes little written jottings. Collecting memories, along with tiny pebbles, leaves or feathers. Each moment is unique, and that is what I try to bring to my art.
The studio contains all of my materials and reference notes. So now I can explore ideas brought in from outside with studio studies and swatches, developing them into finished pictures. I happily work in oil, acrylic, pencil, chalk, ink and watercolour – and other media as each idea demands. Sometimes inclusions of gritty charcoal shards, or gold leaf or contrasting types of paper and card.
