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I recently set myself a little challenge – to fill a sketchbook using a limited number of materials and monochromatic palette based on black and white. I wondered how much information I could gather from my environment if I sat still in one place for a time, let my eyes wander and just observe and absorb what was around me. In this case, it was mainly foliage of various different kinds.

Making art can be a risky business, but what does 'creative risk' look and feel like? Art making risks are unique to the individual. What doesn't feel risky for you in your arts practice, could feel very risky for me and vice versa. For me, the moment of deciding to take a risk arrives quite suddenly and without any preamble, or instructions! It's fleeting but immediate and is filled with a sense of urgency to either grasp the moment and go all-in, or to let it slide and fa

Glimpses and rabbit holes...there have been plenty of those lately, but am I making progress? How do I know if I'm going round in circles or forging a new path forward? It can be difficult to tell the difference between the two sometimes!

But it's happened so often over the years that I've developed ways to move them past that stage. Every painting I make is filled with tipping points that could see the work descend into outright failure (the throw it in the bin sort) or move into a new, exciting and previously undiscovered place. But what makes the difference between a painting that fails and one that ends up being successful?

I've been tuning in to quite a bit of artists chat recently, where artists have been asking themselves this question. So naturally, it got me thinking. What does this even mean and who gets to decide? It too is a question I ask myself almost constantly during my making process and with extra time allowed to consider it when I feel I'm at the point I'm ready to declare a piece finished.

Looking back at a finished piece, I often peer at marks and overlays of colour and think, 'How did I do that?' or 'Why did I do that?.' A feeling of dissociation comes over me as I realise I don't remember making those marks or adding that glaze, or the sequence of actions that created that result. Where was my brain when I was doing all of that?