The art process is both very hard to describe and also very easy. Hard because when I'm inside it, it is totally instinctual in the same way that musicians go freeform, but also easy to describe because it involves an idea, a destination and a journey to find that place. You can see a forest from a distance yet it is only when it envelops you that you start to get a feeling for it. I just have to walk through the forest to get to that destination.
In a practical sense, I start drawing with an HB pencil on basic loose leaf sheets of A4 paper. Cheap and ephemeral it allows absolute freedom to experiment without consequence. The relationship between hand and eye solidifies the ideas, taking wisps of things that float by and making them real. When I'm happy with the form I start to move those ideas onto high quality watercolour paper with either an art pen or brush and ink.
From there, I scan the work and then colour up digitally using Adobe Photoshop™ or Illustrator™. Or to put it another way; I walk through the forest, I lose my way, I go back, I discover a tunnel that I didn't know was there, sometimes the trees are dense and sometimes they open up into a sunlit meadow. Sometimes I arrive at a completely different destination from the one intended but I always arrive somewhere.
