“Though I spent many hours as a child with a paint brush in my hand, I didn’t take art seriously until my youngest child began school. It was then I decided to go back to university and complete a mixed degree in art and literature. Since then painting has taken over.

“For much of my life I have lived in the West Country among the weather and shifting seasons. Nothing is fixed here, not for a day, not for an hour. But somehow, particular encounters with the natural world get stuck in my mind, and I think this is where the pictures begin.

“Back in the studio, the memory gets mixed up with mood and imagination and the scrape of chalk on board, so that I never quite know what will happen while the picture takes shape.

“I use pastels both for their translucent qualities, and because I like to work quickly. Degas was an early love, and Turner. Joan Eardley is a constant inspiration, as is Barbara Rae.”