My work is inspired by an emotional response to the natural world, particularly the wild and watery places of the West Country. The pictures seem to be about the memory of these encounters, the feeling and atmosphere, the quality of the light, the fleeting nature of things, the spirit of the place. They are similar, perhaps, to what Wordsworth called 'Spots of Time'.

But it is almost impossible to be a landscape painter without being aware of the great body of tradition underlying it. On reflection, my work seems to spring from Turner's later, most abstracted works, Constable's more private water colour sketches, and elements of Impressionist and Expressive ideas on Landscape.

So lucky to live in rural Devon and also having a foothold in West Penwith in CornwalI, I work both inside and out, often just walking, but sketching too, and taking notes and photos to use as reminders back in the studio.

Current work is in soft pastel, partly because I like to work quickly, and also it is easy to transport.

I tend, once I've started, to follow intuitively what the marks seem to dictate, rubbing, scratching, scumbling etc. to explore the possibilities of the medium.

Picasso once wrote:

"Painting is not an aesthetic operation; it is a form of magic designed as a mediation between this strange and hostile world and us; a way of seizing the power by giving form to our terrors as well as our desires. When I came to that realisation, I knew I had found my way."

I am not sure that I have yet found my way, but maybe that is what keeps me going.