Having spent years drawing comic strips the pencil is the artistic tool that I am most familiar and comfortable with. Although with strip illustration the work has always been done with a hard line, with any shading being created with lines or crosshatching, my fine art work allows me the freedom to use the graphite in far more creative and expressive ways.
My pieces always have a central female portrait and my aim is to use the pencil to create a realistic effect similar to a photograph. This can then be contrasted against the rough paper textures and print of the collage around it.
The portrait is a spirit; either of a place, or an event, or both. She is sometimes a real person, sometimes fictional, sometimes a mixture of both. She is always strong, either in her emotional connection to the place or event, or her historical legacy, or perhaps just to you.