The process

Drawing is my way of relaxing in the evenings. It’s an ever-evolving process but always involves my comfy, velvet armchair, a cup of tea, and either a documentary film or music playing in the background.
I work primarily in squares because I enjoy the symmetry, so I precut stacks of black mat board into 3, 6, and 12” blanks so I always have one ready to put a new idea on. Working this way, rather than putting an idea into a sketchbook, I’ve found I finish pieces way more frequently and abandon fewer thoughts.
I often draw only a single flower, or another small element that has popped into my head, and set the board aside until I form a complete thought for finishing it. Because I don’t use reference material or create detailed thumbnails in a sketchbook the pieces rarely begin with a complete vision of what it will become. On evenings when I have a blank board and a blank mind I go through my stack of idea boards and pick one to just get my hand moving, and most of the time I end up finishing it within a few sittings.

‘Among Berries’, was one of these pieces. A single, weird, pink flower sat on the board for almost a year buried in a forgotten stack.

One night, when I couldn’t think of anything to draw, I went through and landed on that flower, and for some reason, it was the one I needed to spawn the creative process in that moment. I fleshed out the existing flower, drew a few more, added leaves, and then a frog appeared. I had never drawn an animal without reference before but I decided not to search for a photo and just doodle shapes. The frog ended up being a conglomerate of my memories of real frogs and cartoon frogs. Being nervous about ruining the piece and perhaps unsuccessfully drawing his body, I chickened out and drew some leaves and happy little berries to hide his midsection and add another color to the piece. It was all very organic and the little drawing became exactly what it needed to be.