A collection of sketches

My sketches are punctuation marks for those in between life moments – in between projects or as personal reset-breathers. Some sketches may even be considered as life saving, arriving at times when I was punctuated by life through unexpected curve balls.

Some sketches stay as they are in the pages they were created on and some come with me to the studio for further exploration; each has a wisdom of its own to impart.

A combination of solo sketching or sketching with my good friend, fellow artist and printmaker, Sue Clegg. Both bring different qualities like malleable lines that take their own forms and shapes and colours and textures, which in a way reflect changed conversations with our surroundings, with one another or with ourselves. Each sketch comes alive in an instant with memory of place and connection. Sketches become stories, a continuation of these gently punctuated moments, with pages that are filled with marks which hold adventure and discovery.

Materials I work with

I usually have a go-to selection of materials which are part of my outdoor sketching kit. These range from chalk pens, Indian ink, marker pens, paint sticks and Caran D’ache Neocolor II water soluble wax crayons. The latter two are my absolute favourites to use together for how they sit on different weighted and textured papers, how they interact with one another by layering, and the vibrancy and luminosity I can achieve. I’ve linked them to stores online but do shop around for better deals. Other materials I sometimes use are Posca pens and Promarkers by Winsor and Newton and can also be sourced online at Artway and elsewhere by shopping around.

Colour is a big part of my artist practice. It’s my emotional communicator with how I feel when I’m immersed in landscape, which is why you’ll see colours applied that aren’t completely obvious to the naked eye – but that connection and exchange between myself and the land is a deeper seeing of the tones that lie beyond the forefront, and that which speak to me.