For years I’ve been told to sketch, wherever you go make sure you have a sketchbook with you, but it didn’t actually click with me until I spent a week in Scotland a couple of years ago when I went specifically to ‘sketch’.

Painting was becoming a serious thing for me and I wanted inspiration and boy, did I get it! I had a rough idea where I wanted to go, so I pointed the car and went and spent the week in and around Argyll and the Isle of Bute. With every turn, there was something different to paint and so once I arrived, I didn’t actually cover a huge distance but filled a whole sketchbook.

I gathered enough information to develop a series of paintings both in terms of detail and colour. That week away gave me six months worth of work and still now, I go back to my sketches and I’m able to suggest new approaches to old subject matter.

Building a library of sketchbooks helps to bring back memories – it isn’t like a photograph, I can remember what temperature it was, which direction the wind was blowing, how warm the sun was. I always take photographs as a back-up, to check details which I may have missed or not had time to note down.

I limit the amount of time I spend on a sketch – between 10 and 20 minutes. This creates a fresh, spontaneous approach, although at the end of the day when I look back at the days’ work, I will often add small details or highlights in pastel.

Back in my studio, I spend time going through my sketchbooks and back-up photos and work on compositional studies – simple line drawings and colour swatches. I use my sketches as a starting point only, rarely staying true to the subject, simplifying and stretching the initial idea. I find it helps me to design and use my imagination, rather than just copying what is there and worrying about what is not.

Sketching is essential... in my opinion, I take a sketchbook wherever I travel now and it is a huge source of inspiration. I can’t imagine how it must feel to ‘wonder what to paint’... my advice to any budding artists is get out there, have fun and create!

Croft on the Isle of Bute, storm brewing,
April 2002