The works I create are a quirky representation of my external and internal environment. In London, my images were crowded with peculiar people. Now that I am living in the countryside in France, birds are vying for my attention.

Drawing is my meditation and when I am most at peace. The creation of a new drawing begins when I sit quietly in front of a fresh piece of paper, shut my eyes and go within for a few moments. When I sense a shape or a feeling, I start drawing with my eyes closed. My hand moves automatically over the paper until I feel it is time to stop. And then the fun begins!

I spend hours, weeks, months, immersed in one drawing. I become absorbed in watching my hand making marks, fascinated by the texture of lead on paper and how one stroke informs the next. My preference is to slowly build up the artwork using 0.5mm mechanical pencils which allows for the detailed drawings I am after.

Many of the images in my drawings appear through deliberately creating problems for myself – making a mark that I know is not going to be easily resolved by the next mark. In this way, I keep myself endlessly engaged in what I am doing. As a tutor once said to me, ‘It is always good to have a good creative problem to solve’.

I have never believed that the world is solely as we see it on a material level. The narratives that appear in my drawings no doubt are influenced by this but I don’t profess to know where these strange creatures appear from. However, the images are an offbeat distortion of people and situations that I come across a few months after I have completed the drawing.