I am a self taught artist specialising in pastels and charcoal after starting out with graphite and coloured pencils. Pastels are a wonderful medium, vibrant and soft and in pencil form, actually very clean. I am also currently learning to paint in acrylics and oils so I may be adding them to my portfolio in the near future.

After making a mess on a lovely cream carpet in the living room, I was gently moved into the garage (it was turned into a studio) but after beginning to offer private tuition, I now use a purpose built log cabin and dedicated art space which I open several times a year to the public as part of art trails in the local area.

I exhibit and demonstrate regularly with the Herefordshire Guild of Craftsmen and we attend some wonderful shows every year. Sadly Covid-19 has kept us all home for quite some time but we hope to be out and about soon!

I use many types of pencils - pastel, colour, wax based, oil based, watercolour, charcoal and graphite from Derwent, Stabilo, Pitts, Caran D'ache, Conte a Paris. I don't find one brand better than any other and love having a large array of colours to choose from.

Pencils are a slow medium to use but there are other materials you can use to speed things up. Solvents, panpastels, pastel sticks and  neopastels are a few extras which help by enabling creation of base layers and then using the pencils on top for details.

I use this pastelmat paper a lot of the time. It comes in many shades and allows multiple layers of pencil to be added without the nap being filled up too quickly. I also use watercolour paper, cartridge paper and toned paper too.