Drawing sharpens looking. Every aspect of the landscape in front of you must be seen and must be considered. The spread of the boughs of a tree, or the profile of the riverbank, or whatever, must be repeated by your hand and made tangible. Drawing transforms seeing (which is all in the mind, after all) into a physical experience. Drawing is always surprising, grass, clouds, water, light, darkness etc are stranger and way more exciting than at first glance. Drawing is a super power we all have, we don’t have to be ‘good’ at it to use it to help us see further. Ultimately it inspires awe in your subject matter, be it an apple core or the moon, and that feeling makes me want to write about it.

I like to work intensely on a particular subject. Spending years moving around a place, be it one field or a 50 mile long footpath - whatever. Looking and drawing, looking and drawing, looking and drawing over and over again. Saturating myself in the local colours, the repeating shapes, the flora and fauna, the weather, the moon, sounds and smells of the landscape. Each drawing contains a germ of truth. Each drawing is connected to all the others. My intention is to show them all together, immersing the viewer in the landscape that I’ve spent so long looking at, moving around in and thinking about.

Hampered only by chalk pastels, a board and some paper, I can be out all day, or night, and make many drawings. Walking-looking-drawing-writing is my way of trying tounderstand the landscape I’m in.