I have always loved Medieval Art and whenever I visited a museum or art gallery this was the first section I would head for. My paintings had developed with tiny intricate details such as the millefleur from this period.

At one Open Studios I met a lady who was training to be a tour guide in Cambridge and she recommended I visited the Parker Library at Corpus Christi. I followed her advice and was completely blown away by the old manuscripts and their illuminations. I spoke to the librarian and suddenly I became a reader at the library. It is one of those fantastic moments that came about by chance.

This painting is from some of the drawings I have made from my favourite kind of books, the Bestiaries. Someone once described them as "a moralized Natural History illustrated by curious pictures".

This painting will be on show for the first time at my Open Studio in July 2018. I wonder what everyone will make of it!