For many years, my passion was solely pen & ink drawing.  My traditional shellac based French Sepia ink is supplied by one of London’s oldest art shops, L.Cornelissen & Son, originally founded in 1848. Based just along from the British Museum, it is a wonderful Aladdin’s Cave with shelves of artists materials and tall glass jars, full of beautiful pigments and colours. If you ever find yourself in London, it is well worth a visit.

Using pen & ink, there is nowhere to hide with this type of drawing. It cannot easily be erased, unlike a pencil, and so provides a certain tension during the process of putting ink to paper. I like that tension which needs to be stepped through and released so that the creative process just flows. In that moment, it becomes almost meditative.

"Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad." Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989).

More recently, with restrictions on travel during the lockdown of 2020, I discovered a new passion and subject matter that I wanted to capture. Having never grown up with a dog, it is only in the last three years that I have truly discovered the meaning of ‘a man’s best friend is his dog’. In my case, this has been with our small black Yorkie-Poo, Nelly.

This new discovery has led me into dog portraits, as well as alter my medium slightly, to help capture those characterful looks more effectively. My animal drawings use of a combination of black Indian ink, pencil, and a Windsor & Newton watercolour wash.