Many ideas come when I sit down with a piece of paper in front of me, pick up a felt-tip pen or a crayon, and make a first mark. For some reason, the first shape is almost always an oval for a face, and then the rest of the picture sort of spools itself across the page. As I go along, I listen and respond to impulses to use ink and a brush, colour, and various motifs.

I painted this on A4 Bristol Board with gouache paints. It took me about 3 hours. The drawing originally appeared in my "free drawing" or "you never know what's going to happen" sketchbook. The sketchbook is A5, and I was using grey and black felt-tip pens. 

A friend of mine gave me a square sketchbook, something I don't usually use. So I thought it was just made for studies of faces. These are all done pretty quickly, using oil pastels and Caran d'Ache water soluble crayons.

I love to draw from newspaper photographs, and keep files bulging with cut-out pictures. I have boxes full of sketchbooks from over the years. Here I have pulled a 2011 book out and opened it at random.

The other day I started a new sketchbook (hardbound A5 Seawhite, my favourite) by drawing my breakfast toast. I sometimes focus my attention by asking myself what interests me about a subject. In this case it was the pattern made by the grill rack, so I really enjoyed using a ruler to draw that in.
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I start the day with a hot water and lemon, which explains the next picture of some segments of lemon in a bowl. I want this sketchbook to be a mixture of drawing, colour, collage, and surprises. Out in the shed I have some boxes of odd scraps of paper. So here goes...
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The starting point for this page was a newspaper photograph of a Brazilian chef from Sao Paulo.
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The elements here are images of Italian politicians at an EEC summit in 1978, a page from an Arabic school workbook I found in a second-hand bookshop, a piece of wrapping paper and a raffle ticket. 
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I have no explanation for these faces, they just happened. Using washable fountain pen ink and a brush, with oil pastel. I guess the link from the previous pages was the collar and tie.
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These are the last two pages from that day. They seem a long way from the toast and lemon slices, and I have by now gone back to one of my favourite themes:portraits. I think it is easy to see how the process of working with collage remnants and ink washes has refreshed my portrait work at this point.
The portrait on the right was done on a piece of wallpaper.
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