How my landscape print collection came about

In 2021 I decided to start a new sketchbook project. I couldn't travel or go outside to draw due to lockdown restrictions, but to be honest, my health makes travelling and sketching on location exhausting at the best of times. So instead, I trawled through my vast collection of photos and picked the ones I wanted to draw.

There was no rhyme or reason to the images I chose. I just gathered some of my favourites together, and on any given day, I'd look through and see which one jumped out at me.

They were all pictures I'd taken, so I had a connection to each place and a memory linked to each image even before I started painting.

And then, I just started playing with my art materials and exploring different ways to use them. I layered pens with paint and coloured pencils, and pastels just to see what would happen.

I ended up with a small collection of paintings in my little sketchbook, most of which were landscapes. Some of them weren't great but they were all useful, and I learned from each picture I made.

Once I finished that sketchbook, I looked back through it and chose my 5 favourite paintings, which I turned into a collection of limited edition prints and matching greeting cards.

This collection came about almost by accident. I decided to explore and play in my sketchbook, working at a pace that suited me pretty well and following my sense of curiosity to see what might happen. What might happen if I put this paint on top of this ink or added this coloured pencil on top of that green paint. I suppose it could be summed up that I was trying to answer the question, 'I wonder what would happen if...?'

And I wonder if you could approach your sketchbook with that same sense of openness. I wonder what would happen.

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