I studied illustration at St. Martins School of Art in London where I learned to love drawing. Painting too, but drawing has always been my first love – people clothed, unclothed, old, young, still, or going about their business.

 

In my student days I admired the superb illustrator Edward Ardizzone, whose gentle pictures captured so well the fun and quiet humour of children and adults in so many different situations.

 

Another of my heroes (of course!) is Rembrandt who could say everything there was to say about a person in less than ten pen strokes.

 

I’ve recently been painting abstracts, usually in bright vivid colours. Here I freely admit that the master craftsman Paul Klee has had a lot of influence on me although I can’t emulate his calming Swiss autumnal colours. Klee described drawing as taking a line for a walk – and I know exactly what he means.

 

Someone else who, while not being an influence on me but rather someone whose life and work I admire is Frida Kahlo. She said I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.

 

And this is my goal for the future – to paint my own reality.