I notice colours, textures, patterns and forms, both natural and man-made. To prepare for painting, I make sketches and experiment with collage ideas. My previous paintings were representational seascapes and I'm now developing a more abstract approach. My process is mostly intuitive because I want to keep my rational mind out of the way so I can create work that feels spontaneous and not too controlled. I use acrylic paints applied with brushes as well as other tools to drag paint over the surface to create textures and I use pencils and crayons for scribbles and other mark making.