What draws you to using pencil and charcoal? What can you achieve or express with pencil and charcoal that you can’t with other mediums?

I have been drawing with charcoal since art college. I went to Reigate School of Art and Design, where the tutors were really hot on observational drawing skills. We spent a lot of time learning the techniques needed to produce representational drawings from still lifes and life models, always working at an A1 board on an easel with willow charcoal. That has stuck with me.

When my practice developed into botanical drawing, I started using compressed charcoal as it allowed me to capture more detail. Since then I have moved on to Conté Pierre Noire, a black chalk that works in much the same way as compressed charcoal.

I really love the simplicity of working in black and white. Learning to use just tone and texture to describe an object has been an immensely satisfying journey. I love getting into the subtle tonal shifts across the surface of a subject, and quite often it is the smallest change in tone that suddenly makes a drawing come alive.

Who are your biggest artistic influences?

I have always loved M.C. Escher. As a child I marvelled at his drawings and enjoyed the tricks he played within them. As an adult, I’m still in awe of his draughtsmanship and love the way he plays with space and shape. His work has particularly influenced my bark weaving, both in two and three dimensions.

A more contemporary influence is the botanical artist Ursula Romero. I worked as a picture framer for about twenty years and was fortunate enough to frame some of her enormous Leafscape paintings. These were metre-square watercolours of leaves, and I remember looking at them while I was framing them and thinking, “This is what I want to do.”

Since then Ursula and I have become friends, and rather wonderfully, my large teasel drawing Expansion was recently exhibited alongside one of those Leafscape paintings I had framed years earlier, at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens.

How did you first start making art – was it with the same mediums you prefer to use today? And if it wasn’t, how did that evolve?

After art college and university, I redirected my energies into learning and teaching bushcraft and outdoor living skills. It was during this time, spent largely in the woods in my twenties, that I started making craft objects.

The whole process of harvesting and preparing the materials I needed became an important part of the craft itself. I spent many years teaching myself how to make wooden longbows and baskets from tree bark. Bark basketry particularly resonated with me, and I have been weaving ever since, specialising in cedar, sweet chestnut and willow bark.

It was also through working in the woods that I learnt more about the plants and trees I was using for craft, medicine and food. As I learnt about the flora of British woodland, I began spending more and more time studying it.

On my days off from teaching I would investigate the tiniest lichen-covered twigs and discover entire new worlds. I became fascinated by both the smallest details and the most ancient trees.

So by the time I had that epiphany while framing Ursula’s work, I had already developed a particular way of looking at the natural world. Drawing simply became another way of exploring it.

What is your favourite time of day to create?

When I’m drawing, I can literally work from early morning until midnight. I prefer long stretches at the drawing board because I work quite slowly and need time to warm up and get into the flow. Once I’m there, hours can pass without me noticing.

With weaving, I like to start early but usually stop by early evening. Weaving all day can be surprisingly tiring—and eventually my fingers start to hurt!

How do you create the perfect atmosphere in your studio when you’re at work?

I tend to listen to audiobooks or podcasts when I’m working in the studio. I love losing myself in a long story. My mind wanders off into the narrative while my hands are creating, and sometimes when I’m really lost in a story the work just seems to happen without much conscious thought.

I don’t like being interrupted once I’m in that flow. I find it really disruptive and it can take quite a while to get back into it again.

Do you have a favourite place to create outside of your studio?

A friend of mine owns some woodland in East Sussex and I have spent many days down there peeling bark, weaving baskets or carving beside the fire. There is something very special and innate about sitting beside a campfire and making something beautiful with your hands.

What is the story behind a piece of your work that you rarely get to talk about?

One of my woven bark wall hangings is called Watson and Crick. The pattern running through it is influenced by the DNA double helix, and it brings together two things that I find fascinating: modern science and an ancient way of making.

A lot of the patterns and sculptures I create from tree bark are influenced by mathematics, science and imagery from space exploration. At the same time, the techniques and materials I use have their origins in crafts that stretch back thousands of years.

I find that contrast fascinating. We have this enormous human desire to discover and understand more, yet the people who first wove with bark had essentially the same brains and hands that we have today. What separates us is this extraordinary accumulation of knowledge.

With Watson and Crick, I liked the idea of using a very old craft and a material taken directly from a tree to represent something that sits at the heart of our modern understanding of life.

How do you know when a piece of art is truly finished?

My bark weaving usually has a definite finishing point. A basket is finished when you complete the border, and once that is done there is no going back. A wall hanging is similar: the pattern has been worked out and I weave until it is complete.

My drawings are a little more ambiguous. It is never good to overwork a drawing, and over the years I have become better at spotting when it is time to stop.

Having said that, once I have “finished” a drawing I now leave it alone for a week or so before coming back to it. That time away helps me see whether certain areas need a little more attention. I spend a lot of time simply looking at the drawing at this stage and try to be very restrained about any further work I do.

Which artist or mentor gave you the best piece of advice in your career?

A very good friend of mine is a brilliant portrait photographer. My wife and I love her photography and use her when we need photographs of us working in the studio.

She is a real people person and has a knack for getting you to relax and open up, which allows her to capture the best images of you.

In the early days of my becoming a professional artist, she told me that I needed to tell the story of myself and my work. That advice has always stuck with me. People want to understand not only what you make, but why you make it and where it comes from.

If you could magic one piece of famous artwork into your home forever, from anywhere in the world, what would it be and why? And what room would you put it in?

For me, a birch bark canoe is the absolute pinnacle of bushcraft, basketry and practical art, and I would dearly love to make and own one.

It would be amazing to have one hanging from the rafters of the vaulted, timber-framed house of my dreams. Although I would also have to take it down occasionally to paddle around the lake that, naturally, my dream house sits beside...