I prefer working outside, directly from nature. I like the immediacy of that response and the feeling of being ‘at one’ with my environment.

I must confess to being quite anti-social when I am in the act of trying to capture a landscape. I work quickly and this requires me to be utterly focused on what I am seeing and the marks I am making. I absolutely love that connection with the land and I can’t be distracted. For someone who is pretty sociable, it comes as a surprise to my friends if they witness this! I don’t bother with chairs and easels, not only because they are cumbersome if I want to hike to where I plan to paint, but because I like to sit on my mat, often hunkered down amongst the vegetation, in order to be close to the earth and to feel part of nature. 

If the weather is truly terrible, I usually use a limited water colour palette and pencil to capture a scene quickly. In windy and rainy conditions on the coast for instance, I have been known to start a large painting, put down the first colours in oil pastel, acrylic and acrylic ink and let nature do the rest! This can provide the perfect base for more considered work back in the studio, where I let the paintings sit awhile as I contemplate how to develop them. This is the tricky stage as it is the delicate balance between keeping the spontaneity of the original painting and working to ‘finish’ it.  This process can involve  collage and drawing back into the work in order to achieve the effect that I feel speaks most clearly of that place.