Drawing and sketching has always been a vital part of my practice as an painter. I use it to discover new places as well as finding new possibilities for my work. Subjects, marks and composition made in a drawing can often find there way in to my paintings. If a drawing doesn't work it is unlikely that I will choose to set up and paint there.

Corfe Castle in Dorset is a ruin, a result of being blown up by Parliamentarian troops loyal to Oliver Cromwell at the end of the English Civil war in 1646 . What remains, I think is a beautiful ruin and for me more exciting having been destroyed.