Just after leaving Art College, I went to live in the Wye Valley and it was there that I first started experimenting with the painting knife. It allowed me to use a wide range of marks, with thick impasto using the flat of the knife whilst the tip gave me tiny seed heads and the edge, the finest linear marks. My first two very large knife paintings were on easels in my studio, when the celebrated art critic and writer, John Berger, a friend of our local doctor came to visit and told me,

"You have a great feel for the sensuality of paint and mark making. I really think the knife is the way for you to go”. This was just the confirmation I needed to continue painting with the knife. All these paintings were done in the lanes around our cottage in St Briavels.