My Practice

Life Drawing

Tracing My Days

An ongoing drawing practice shaped by daily life, limited energy, and the things I notice along the way.

This page is a place for me to keep track of what I’m doing and thinking about in my drawing practice.

Most of the work grows out of ordinary days: drawing what is around me, writing a little about it, reading slowly, and noticing the things I keep returning to.

I expect this page to change as the work changes.

What I’m Doing

Drawing has become one of the ways I move through my days.

I draw what is around me, often in small sketchbooks and often from bed. I write about the drawings from time to time, and I read books that help me think about what I’m doing.

I’m not working towards one particular outcome. I’m more interested in seeing what happens if I keep drawing, looking, reading, and returning.

Context: Living with ME

I live with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), which limits the amount of energy I have and shapes much of my daily life.

A lot of that life happens quietly and out of sight: time spent in bed, time recovering, small routines, brief moments of energy, and the ordinary things that happen around me while I am not able to do very much.

Drawing has become one of the ways I pay attention to that life and record it.

Because my energy is limited, the drawings are often small and made in short bursts. This isn’t something I have imposed on the work; it has grown naturally from the way I have to live.

Over time, these small drawings have become a record of my days. They help me notice what is here, even when life feels very restricted, and remind me that an ordinary day is still something worth looking at.

Companions and Influences

There are a number of artists and writers I keep returning to. Some I know well, some I am only beginning to spend time with, and others are still further away.

These relationships take different forms. Some of these people I know personally, even if only a little; others I know only through their drawings, books, or writing, and some are no longer alive. I still think of them all as companions because, whether I know them personally or only through what they have made, I keep their work close and find myself thinking alongside it — returning to it, and sometimes noticing that it changes how I see my own.

I like having these people around the practice. They give me things to think about, show me different ways of working, and sometimes help me notice something in my own drawings.

Current companions (listed alphabetically)

Ellen Bell — I’m drawn to the way her drawings and short pieces of writing build slowly into a record of everyday life, and to the discipline of sharing three drawings every day on Instagram, alongside her online diary. Her early morning walks, during which she repeatedly returns to and draws particular places around my own home town of Aberystwyth, make her work feel especially close to me. I’m interested in what I might learn from that kind of sustained repetition and return in my own practice.
Danny Gregory — His books and sketchbooks have been important to me for years. I especially value the way drawing becomes part of everyday life rather than something separate from it.
Mary Gordon — Mary was a longtime friend, and her death was what brought me back to drawing. Since then, I’ve become increasingly aware of the traces of her that remain woven through my life. Her old blog is still online, and postcards she sent me over the years continue to turn up in books, dusty corners, and on the fridge. I’m interested in the way these small, ordinary remnants allow me to encounter her again unexpectedly, and in what they might teach me about memory, presence, and what survives of a life.
Ben Hartley — I love the looseness and individuality of his drawings and the way drawing and writing sit together in his books.
David Hockney — Probably the artist I have followed and felt in conversation with for the longest time. I keep returning to his curiosity about looking, drawing, and picture-making. In the late 1990s, discovering his Polaroid collages had a big impact on the way I saw the world. They made me think differently not only about photography, but about drawing too: about the fact that we look with two eyes, that our gaze is constantly moving, and that we may need to unlearn the fixed-point habit of seeing that centuries of Western picture-making have taught us.
Timothy Hyman — I’ve only come to Tim Hyman’s work relatively recently, and since his death in 2024. That means I’m inevitably looking at his work through the lens of his death, and I find myself searching for traces of his life and practice that remain, particularly online. Through his now fixed and unchanging Instagram page, with its intimate posts, it can be surprisingly easy to forget that he is no longer alive and working in bed on a drawing. I’m interested in exploring more of the strand of his work that centred on his partner, Judith, who died a year before he did, and whom he was still drawing during his morning drawing sessions in bed right up until his death. His diaristic A Year With Maggie’s is a book I find myself returning to.
Jason Polan — I’m drawn to the dedication of Polan’s daily drawing practice, and to the way he kept working even after receiving a terminal diagnosis. His simple ink drawings, often made with humble materials, take on a monumental quality when seen in volume. Since his death in 2019, the work has taken on an even greater poignancy for me, and I’m interested in the way traces of his life linger through his drawings, his books and websites, and the memories people continue to share of him.
Dan Price — The Moonlight Chronicles feels very close to the kind of work I am interested in: drawing as a way of recording an ordinary life over time.
Cathryn Worrell — Artist, illustrator and friend who also lives with ME/CFS. We regularly correspond and keep in touch online.
My younger self — I’m beginning to think of my younger self as another companion in the practice. There are many traces of him still around — in old drawings, sketchbooks, notebooks, photographs, podcasts, blog posts, The Beany, the online traces of my MA show, and other things I haven’t yet rediscovered. I’m interested in revisiting those traces, seeing what they might reveal about where I’ve come from, and what kind of conversation might be possible between the person I was then and the person making the work now.

Emerging companions

These are people I am actively beginning to spend more time with. Their books or work are already close at hand, but I don’t yet know them as well as the people above.

John Berger — I’ve only begun to read him properly, but his writing about drawing and looking feels close to questions I already have.
Derek Jarman — I’m reading his journals and writing and am interested in the way art, illness, place, and ordinary life sit alongside one another.
Keith Haring — I’m spending time with his Journals, particularly the way drawing, writing, work, illness, and everyday life run through them together.
Anne Truitt — I’m slowly getting to know Daybook and am interested in the way she writes about making art as part of the rhythm of daily life.

Possible future conversations

There are also artists, writers, and thinkers I may want to explore later, but whom I do not yet know well enough to say much about.

These include Jean-Luc Nancy, John Dewey, Jacques Derrida, Tim Ingold, Tania Kovats, Emma Dexter, Keith Vaughan, Pia Bramley and others I may come across.

I don’t see this as a reading list. They are simply people I may return to if something in the drawings leads me towards them.

Reading

Reading sits alongside the drawing. I don’t read in order to explain the work or build a theory around it. I read because books sometimes give me a phrase, an idea, or a way of looking that stays with me and changes how I think about what I’m doing.

I read slowly, usually a few pages at a time. Finishing a book matters less to me than finding something in it that I want to keep close.

By my bedside

These are the books I’m actively reading, rereading, or dipping into now.

Dan Price — The Moonlight Chronicles (selected issues) — I’m revisiting issues I have known for some time alongside a few that are new to me. Price’s drawn record of everyday life feels particularly close to my interest in drawing as a way of noticing, inhabiting, and preserving the texture of ordinary days.
Danny Gregory — Everyday Matters — I’m rereading Gregory’s account of discovering drawing after his wife was seriously injured and their family life changed dramatically. His use of drawing as a way to cope, pay attention, and remain connected to ordinary life has resonated strongly with me over the years, and feels particularly important again now that I am dealing with new health issues.
Derek Jarman — Pharmacopoeia and Smiling in Slow Motion — I’m beginning to spend more time with Jarman’s writing, particularly the way art, illness, observation, place, and everyday life sit alongside one another without needing to be separated.
David Hockney — Faces 1966–1984 — A recent arrival beside the bed. I’m spending time with Hockney’s sustained attention to faces and portraiture, and am interested in how this might connect with my own current return to self-portrait drawing.

Back on the shelf

These are books I have read or spent time with recently and which still feel present, even though I am not actively reading them now.

Timothy Hyman — A Year with Maggies — I am particularly interested in Hyman’s sustained attention to a particular place and community, and in drawing as a way of witnessing experience over time.
Ben Hartley — Pigs Must Eat on Sundays — A book that feels close to my interest in drawing and writing as a way of recording the texture of everyday life. I love Hartley’s quirky, childlike drawings and yearn to emulate something of their lightness of touch.
Ben Hartley — Dear Susan — Another example of Hartley’s intimate, personal way of bringing drawing and writing together as a record of lived experience, through letters to his great-niece, Susan.
Keith Haring — Journals — A book I have spent some time with recently, particularly interested in the way drawing, writing, work, observation, and everyday life coexist within it. Lately, Haring’s ability to continue working while living with illness and facing his own mortality has been resonating particularly strongly with me.
David Hockney & Martin Gayford — A History of Pictures — A continuing conversation about seeing, picture-making, and the different ways humans have tried to represent the world.

Books and ideas I may explore

There are other books and writers I’m curious about but don’t know well yet.

These include:

Emma Dexter (ed.) — Vitamin D
John Dewey — Art as Experience
Jacques Derrida — Memoirs of the Blind
Timothy Hyman — The World New Made
Tim Ingold — Drawing Together
Tania Kovats — The Drawing Book
Jean-Luc Nancy — The Pleasure of Drawing
Gilda Williams — How to Write About Contemporary Art

Some of these are waiting for me on my studio bookshelf; others have been recommended to me or caught my attention, but I’ve yet to acquire them. I imagine not all of them will find their way to my bedside table, and that the list will change over time.

Questions I’m Pondering

A central question?

I was recently reminded of my MA, which I completed in 2008. My memories of it have turned out to be rather unreliable, and I’m finding it interesting to sift through some of the traces of that work that I’ve found online.

I’d like to continue exploring where my practice was then, and the parallels with the practice I’ve been building over the last few years, since the death of my friend Mary.

When I completed my MA, I was offered a place to pursue a PhD. I decided that I wasn’t well enough and withdrew before I had really begun. Had I continued, I hope I might have pursued a question something like this:

How can small, daily acts of mark-making function as a diaristic testimony of life lived — particularly within the constraints of illness, fragility, and mortality?

Even though my current practice isn’t a piece of academic research, this is still a question I’d like to keep close as I work.

Other questions I’m currently keeping in mind are:

What is a drawing?
How can other people’s marks intersect with my work?
What should I keep?
What can I let go of?
Why do I keep returning to the same subjects?
What is the value of repetition?
What might my marks reveal about me that I’m unaware of?

Drawing, Writing, Reading

Drawing is at the centre of the practice, but writing and reading sit alongside it.

I draw to notice what is around me. I write when I want to think a little more about what I’ve drawn or what has been happening in the practice. I read slowly and follow whatever seems useful or interesting at the time.

All three need to fit around the energy I have available. Sometimes that means a drawing, sometimes a few lines of writing, sometimes only a page or two of a book.

The pattern is simple:

Look → Draw → Reflect → Read → Return

I don’t follow this as a fixed method. It is just the rhythm I seem to come back to.

Creating an Archive of Sorts

Over time, the drawings, sketchbooks, notes, photographs, writing, and other fragments around the practice are beginning to form an archive of sorts. I’m not trying to build a formal or complete record, but I am interested in what accumulates and what I choose to keep.

My Sketchbooks

For a while now I’ve been drawing in small homemade 6 × 4 inch sketchbooks.

I like the routine—ritual really—of making and using them. Cutting down a sheet of A1 130 gsm cartridge paper with my paint-covered metre-long steel ruler. Folding and stapling the resulting sheets into four little sixteen-page books. Securing each one with a No. 65 rubber band.

I write the date I begin each sketchbook on the front cover and try to keep one with me at all times. When I want to draw, I pull off the rubber band and open to the next blank spread. When all the spreads are filled—sometimes the same day, sometimes a week or more later—I add the completion date to the front cover and reach for the next little book.

This rhythm feels both linear and circular and is at the core of my practice at the moment. I like the idea that it might stretch into the future, the pile of these little drawing-filled books multiplying, each containing a tiny cumulative record of my ordinary days. But I know myself, and suspect some new shape of working will appear, probably quite suddenly, at some point. Maybe in a few months, maybe in a few years.

I do still use more traditional sketchbooks too, although less often at the moment. They tend to fill more slowly and sit alongside the little books rather than replacing them.

Studio Diary

The Studio Diary is a place for me to pause and notice what is happening in the work.

A post might begin with a drawing, a few words about the circumstances in which it was made, something I noticed while drawing, a question that has come up, or a thought prompted by something I am reading.

I don’t want to document everything or turn every drawing into research. I simply want a place to record what lingers.

Other things I’m currently keeping

Other things I’m currently keeping alongside the sketchbooks and Studio Diary include:

loose drawings and test sheets
notes and fragments of writing
quotations and passages from books
photographs
short films or recordings of drawing and daily life
conversations and correspondence
zines, pamphlets, and other small publications

I don’t expect to keep everything, or to organise all of this systematically. What matters to me is having enough of it around to be able to look back, make connections, and notice things I might otherwise have forgotten.

Ideas I Keep Returning To

Attention — drawing as a way of staying with what is here.
Presence — the small mark as evidence of a life being lived.
Repetition and return — coming back to the same subjects, gestures, and routines and noticing how they change.
The everyday — treating ordinary life as enough.
Trace and memory — drawings as small records of moments that might otherwise disappear.
Accumulation — meaning building slowly through sketchbooks, fragments, and repeated acts.
Conversation — drawing as a way of having a conversation with my life, rather than simply depicting it.

Sharing the Work

Although the drawing begins privately, I do like to share parts of it.

At the moment, this happens in a few simple ways:

Studio Diary — short posts about drawings, books, and things I’ve been thinking about.
Patreon — drawings, videos, reflections, and conversations shared with my creative community.
Instagram and Bluesky — more immediate glimpses of drawings and moments from the day.

Other ways I’m thinking about sharing

There are also a couple of forms of sharing that I’m interested in developing, even though they are not yet a regular part of the practice.

1. Small publications

In the past I have made print publications of my work, and that is something I’m keen to do again. I’m considering returning to a new version of my illustrated journal The Beany, or perhaps making something else in the form of zines, pamphlets, or other small editions.

My recent reading of issues of Dan Price’s Moonlight Chronicles and Ben Hartley’s Pigs Must Eat on Sundays has started me thinking again about ways of turning drawings and complete sketchbook pages into printed material.

2. Conversations and correspondence

For a long time, my practice has felt quite isolated, but I’m increasingly interested in talking about the work with other people.

I’m thinking about ways of starting conversations with other artists, friends, readers, and mentors, and I like the possibility of letters or other forms of exchange becoming part of the practice itself.

In the future

Some of these fragments may eventually gather into larger things — perhaps books, exhibitions, or other publications — but I don’t feel any need to decide that now.

For me, sharing is simply another way of letting the drawings move out into the world and become part of a conversation.

Continuing the Work

I don’t know where this practice is going, and I don’t need to.

For now, the important thing is to keep returning to it.

One drawing.
One note.
One ordinary day at a time.

To continue is itself the art — a quiet defiance of disappearance, a way of staying awake to the small evidences of being alive.

Updated: 22 September 2026