The aroma of a freshly brewed coffee mingles with the chirping chorus of birds in a sun-kissed Algarve cafe. These feathered bandits are fearless, snatching crumbs from unsuspecting patrons. While my usual holiday sketches depict botanical illustrations or lovely landscapes, this Portuguese trip ignited a new passion for bird drawings: capturing the playful spirit of these cheeky creatures.

Acrylics are more than just paint; they're a medium with limitless artistic possibilities. For a mixed media artist like myself, this versatile medium is at the heart of my creative practice. Their appeal goes beyond compelling colours and into the realms of joyful exploration, for this malleable substance can be manipulated in myriad ways. 

A real delight about visiting family in Portugal is the ability to regularly spend time at a favourite beach bar, sipping coffee, people watching and drawing what I see. This time it was the human forms of the bathing beauties that caught my eye and to my surprise I gained a new found confidence in life drawing. In three short days I saw my sketches improve, here’s how I did it...

Taking a sketchbook for a walk outside is a marvellous way to record details of the world around you.  Feeling the forms of a view through your fingertips, as the pencil moves across a page, gives a richer understanding of what you see.  As a practicing fine artist this is why I’ve always got a couple of Moleskine’s on the go.

In my experience a good fine art collection is generally created out of sheer determination and hours of playing with paint. But in order to get to that bit something has to happen first. A vital spark. The trigger that sets the wheels of inspiration in motion. Finding that spark is something I love, especially when it comes from a single sketchbook drawing.

Ever since I was little road trips have been a time for drawing and colouring in. In recent years I’ve taken this literally and used car passenger time for filling my Moleskine sketchbooks with views of the motorway. As a mixed media landscape artist it provides an opportunity to practice eye feasting and quick response drawing as views zoom by.