People sometimes ask which medium I prefer, as though I have to choose one lane and stay in it. The honest answer is that the materials do different jobs. Some ideas arrive quietly and need the patience of oil paint. Others need the directness of graphite, where one line can hold a glance, a memory or the quiet weight of a face. A mural asks a different question again: how can an image belong to the people who move through a space every day?
Graphite was one of my earliest ways into making art. It teaches you to slow down. There is nowhere to hide when you are drawing a face. You have to pay attention to the turn of a cheek, the softness around an eye, the small imbalance that makes a person look like themselves. That way of looking stays with me when I pick up a paintbrush.
Painting gives me a different kind of freedom. With acrylic, I can build colour, shape and rhythm quickly, then step back and change the whole atmosphere of a piece. With oil, I enjoy the slower build: layers, softer transitions and the time to sit with an image before deciding what it needs next. Flowers, figures and imagined scenes often grow through that conversation rather than arriving fully formed at the beginning.
Then there is public work. A mural or hand-painted sign has to live beyond the studio. It has to work in changing light, from a distance, beside people talking, walking and getting on with their day. It is a lovely challenge because the work cannot be precious. It has to be generous, clear and alive in its surroundings.
Moving between these materials keeps my practice honest. Drawing makes me look more carefully before I paint. Painting makes me braver with colour when I work on a wall. Public projects remind me that art can meet people in ordinary places, not only behind the quietness of a gallery wall.
The thread is always observation. Whether I am drawing a portrait, painting a flower, working in mixed media or creating lettering for a storefront, I am looking for the detail that makes an image feel lived-in and true. The medium changes, but the attention stays the same.
Talk about a commission