My relationship history with art-making is for another post, but suffice to say that the last 12-14 months have been the first that I actually tried my hand at using colour. Before that, nearly everything I made was black ink, and shades of grey.

I started timidly, swatching paints I already owned but never before had the confidence to use, not really sure about it all. Then I got some pencils and a colouring book, to take away the fear. Next was Procreate on the iPad, and digital landscapes.

Then I pretty much just dove in and ran with it.

Last night I cobbled together a record of the best pieces from the last year, to see just how far I’ve come.

It’s still incredibly hard to sit down and create but it’s equally quite incredible to see everything I made, gathered together like this…

…and to think that just one year ago, I was still terrified of colour.