Why I Draw With a Biro

There is a quiet arrogance in expensive materials — the sense that a thing matters because it cost a lot to make. I have always pushed against that. So I keep returning to the ballpoint pen, the biro, the pen of receipts and shopping lists.

You cannot erase a ballpoint line. Every stroke is a commitment, and a drawing of any depth is thousands of them, crossed and re-crossed until the tone builds like a slow tide. It is unforgiving and it is honest, and that is exactly why I trust it.

When I drew 'Nourish' — a mother folded around her child — I wanted the most sacred subject I know rendered in the most ordinary tool I own. Tenderness is not a grand gesture. It is the same small act, repeated until it becomes a life. Ten thousand small blue lines felt like the right way to say that.