Your start a piece and then hit a ‘resistance’ which stops you in the tracks. Despite looking at the work on and off for years, nothing seems to work. And then an exhibition looms and you think ‘I should really finish this’ and you do and it just seems quite easy.

I was inspired by the Four Quartets series by Ian McKeever which I find so beautiful. He works large on canvas with acrylic and oil but also do smaller pieces on paper with gouache. My take started with watercolour on heavy paper and then I applied the gouache which floats to create some sort of double layer although I’m only applying one layer.

So – I have stretched some Canson paper and am looking forward to challenging myself. Feels like I should keep the surface only for pared down forms and concentrate on the colour. Will try to do what Patrick Heron did – the ‘intuitive manipulation of paint’ and some’collaboration with the material’!