I rarely start off with a clear vision or an end goal in mind. I use pencil and line work in an automatic and deliberately unfocused way with the intention of responding to the spontaneous forms as they appear to me on the page. Once shapes and structure begin to emerge however, then I undertake the process of finding the most harmonious and satisfying arrangement, but still with no real end goal to mind. Only when I’ve settled upon an almost sculpted set of forms will I begin considering such things as colour, texture and values. Sometimes I’ll take inspiration at this point from the details from a natural source such as a dragonfly and begin applying texture and details focusing on this as a muse. The original sculptured forms will often be adjusted later on in the piece to push further in the direction of this new inspiration, but the underpinned structure that stems from the surreal approach of automatic drawing always ends up informing the finished piece the most.