I am a writer at heart and an artist by chance – or so I have always believed.

As a child I was an avid reader and would spend hour after hour engulfed by the pages of a book – largely due to the encouragement of my mother. My earliest memory of writing was poetry (although this feels far too grand a word for what I actually produced), the subject matter was invariably wildlife and horses, my two enduring loves.

I continued writing into and through my teenage years and was an avid diarist and rookie writer of song lyrics.

It is during my teens that art first makes a memorable appearance for me. I acquired a large A4 notepad filled with blank paper and began to draw the illustrations from some of my favourite children’s books. My recollection of those first attempts were that I enjoyed it, received favourable comments from those around me, but ultimately (in true teenage style) decided I was hopeless at art and so abruptly stopped drawing.

Over the years, the notepad was lost; however, rather tellingly, I never forgot about it and carefully looked after an unopened set of Derwent pencils that were given to me as a present around that time.

My love of nature and the outdoors was nurtured by my parents, both of whom enjoyed spending weekends in the countryside all year round, walking, cycling and picnicking.

We used to go conker hunting in autumn, my Dad pressing the shiniest and smoothest specimens into my hand where I remember being utterly mesmerised by the colour, look and feel of them. We kicked through piles of autumn leaves and roasted sweet chestnuts in the oven back home.

I went away to university and it was during a placement year that I first discovered ecology as a career. From that moment on, I steadfastly set my sights on making it the career for me, which I went on to do.

Throughout my adult life, writing has continued to be a constant and it was writing that brought me back to art. The rest, as they say is history. I opened the tin of pencils that I had kept unused for twenty years, began to draw and was instantly hooked; I have not stopped drawing since.

To say this turn of events is a surprise, is an understatement. I can’t convey how gorgeously surreal it is to have art at the centre of my world. It feels like coming home. Drawing wildlife has brought me even closer to the natural world that I love.

Seven years into my renewed art journey, I was joyously reunited with the notepad of drawings from my teenage years, found buried in an old cardboard box in my parents’ loft. Sifting through the pages of that book was magical – it seemed to make sense of it all and I found that I had come full circle; perhaps the pull to draw wasn’t so random after all.

The first few years of drawing were spent teaching myself the basic skills of how to draw (which involved hours and hours of practise and hard graft), experimenting with pen and ink, subject matter and styles, until finally I found my home using graphite to produce drawings of animals and the natural world.

At the time of writing, the future is to focus on continuing to improve my drawing skills (a lifetime’s work) in addition to pushing my creativity in this area to produce artwork that is truly from the heart. For me, writing and art are inextricably linked and so I know that they will inevitably combine further and breathe life into future projects, which is perhaps the most exciting vision of all.