Always making time to get out and respond to the world. I find that the discomfort and awkwardness of the logistics of sketching outside helps with the quality I am after with my work. Erasing and minimising the contrived nature that drawing in comfort can have at times.

I had to create a lecture for the MA cohort at Plymouth College of Art in 2017. I decided that I had to get out in nature and explore and immerse myself in it in order to talk authentically about how my work is inspired by nature. To remind myself of the imapct it has on my daily practice.

I was asked by Ilker to create a house cut out for his publication Boy Room, to accompany the images from his exhibition of the same name in St Ives Back Lane West in June 2017. It was nerve racking because there were only 10 copies and i had to glue them in myself, making sire not to ruin any pages! I did it within a whisker of his deadline, and with no major boo boos! : )

I was lucky enough to be chosen to exhibit at the 2018 Children's Book Fair in Bologna. Out of over 3000 illustrators I was one of 77 from around the world and only 3 UK illustrators to be chosen! I go over in March to see the show and hopefully connect with some publishers to see if my work would be of interest to anyone around the world. To visit my current publisher, which is always a joy, and to gather information for my students at college. The images I submitted will also be in the annual that accompanies the fair and will go on a world tour after the fair in March. 

One of 20 images chosen for the 60th year celebrations, publications, exhibition and visual identity of the fair. Illustrating the essence of the fair, we were only allowed to use the brand colours of orange / pink / black and red and white.

Seeds of Fables with Jesus Cisneros, Mariana Murz and Studio Schmal.

I spent just three days camping and sketching in Gulvals Tremenheere Sculpture gardens in the summer of 2016. I used my sketchbooks predominantly and my intention was to immerse myself in the gardens and produce a ltd edition run of books from the sketches. They now sell exclusively in the Artisan shop there.

I was chosen to exhibit my sketchbooks as part of SKETCH 2017 at Rabley Drawing Centre in Marlborough. The panel of Judges were Tom Hammick, painter and printer; Peter Randell-Page RA, sculptor; GIll Saunders, Senior Curator (Prints), Word & Image Dept, V&A Museum;

A 24 page booklet illustrated with sketches from a 3 day residency, punctuated throughout with quotes from Henry David Thoreau, a leading transcendentalist, essayist, philosopher and historian, among other many titles of the mid 19th C. His book Walden has been of great interest and inspiration to me. A book that reflects on a simple way of life in natural surroundings. He lived for 2 years in woods near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. His time there became a model for deliberate and ethical living and resonates so much more today for millions around the world.

I spent a week in Studio no.5 at Porthmeor studios in the summer of 2014. It was an amazing space with a atmospheric caliber that was palpable beyond words. i really felt the pressure of what had gone before. I had to create work of worth here, so I went in everyday and just worked my way through tons of bits of paper, all at once. Working large at first to erase the fear, and then working smaller, in the corner of this huge room. To this day I feel like I created something of real worth to me. These pieces were collated and cuasted into frames and were first shown in the Picture Room at Newlyn Gallery, Newlyn, Alongside the Falmouth University Graduates show The Midas Awards.

I was asked by Simon at Newlyn gallery to exhibit my latest work, so I knew that the week at Porthmeor would be the work that I was to create for the show.

Responding to a Victorian house that had been untouched since the 70's we were asked to respond to the space through art and installation. The upstairs rooms felt very warm and inviting and I felt the memories of children, and thinking about how we store memories of our childhood, trapped in time, via trinkets and photos, and trying to illustrate that with these trinkets in cloches, precious or distant memories.

Walking into Memory is an artist-led project initiated by Jayne Anita Smith bringing together a diverse range of 25 artists from Cornwall and the wider UK, who will take over an empty Victorian house in Penzance to create art that responds to the traces of history and memory suggested within the fabric of the building.

The house remained largely untouched since the 60’s and 70’s with many original features still intact and therefore generates a uniquely layered dialogue and a sense of times past – a historical space in transition.

It provides the inspiration and opportunity for the participating artists to produce work away from their regular studio practice, a chance for exploration outside the usual gallery context. Paintings, drawings, sculpture, films and installations will be made both in situ and off site and come together to create a unique and transient show.

The title Walking into Memory evokes wider connections involving memory such as trace, vestige, remains, remnant, relic, evocation, recollection, remembrance, home and belonging.

Walking into Memory takes place prior to the house undergoing a substantial architectural renovation and therefore the artistic interventions and interpretations are destined to be absorbed into the memories and history of the house.

A task to create a story around how the island we created, was created, using characters we designed and also 3 elements from other peoples work.

A workshop task set by Jesus Cisneros in Gerswalde Germany. To create images that accompanied a limerick i wrote, around a character from another task.

I was asked to submit some work to this in August 2018, and in Nov 2018 I went to Shanghai to the open ceremony where the work will be part of the permanent exhibition in the Baoshan Folk Arts Museum. Also subsequent world tours. I am very tired here!

My work on projecting inside the exhibition space in Shanghai.

I presented at the Illustration Research, Illustrating Mental Health symposium in November 2019 in Worcester. My presentation was entitled An-it-dote for a new world, sketchbooks as therapy, for picturebooks. It was an illustration of how I have used my sketchbooks in making acute experiences of anxiety and depression tangible, in order to then transform these sketches into material for my own picturebook. This activity has since unlocked the narratives I have carried with me all my life and given me the insight and confidence to share through my skills I have as a picture book illustrator.

A poster that starts to explain my pedagogic research. How can we as educators guide our students towards a more efficient knowledge and understanding of self and practice through individual creative process? Looking towards the meaning-making workshop and in action reflection on individual creative inclination.

I won a contract to create the visuals for next years event.

Award winner CICLA Original Illustration exhibition professional category.

Winners commission to create the two posters for the next competition.

Winners commission to create the two posters for the next competition.

A week long workshop working through story ideas launched by small workshop tasks.