I decided very early on that I had to discipline myself to concentrate solely on drawing until I reached a stage at which I felt that I had developed a technique that was essentially my own, albeit built from building blocks from many other sources of inspiration.

I worked feverishly at that for over 2 years after leaving college and developed a good eye hand co-ordination and made thousands of works in the street, in cafes, at work (I had a job in a sports centre where one of my duties was to man the bar/kiosk), and from memory most of which I kept. Then when I finally felt ready for the transition, I “allowed” myself to graduate to colour!

From 1988-1989 I had a studio on the upper floor of an unused 16th century barn where the majority of the work up to that time was also stored as there was a lot of it. I was earning money doing specialist decorating (marbling and specialised finishes etc) and in 1989 I was invited to go to Holland to work on a project in a house in Arnhem. After which I was also invited to work with a country wide famous restorer on a very old (15th century) house in Edam. When I returned home with enough money to be able to focus on my work proper for at least a while I was greeted by an utter disaster

to be continued