Nick Watton is a talented artist and a compulsive sketcher ever since childhood.

He brought us a homework he had done as a young teenager. Most teenagers, asked to sketch something they had seen, wouldn't come back with a tableau of a dozen superbly observed black biro vignettes of blackberries, grasses and a host of other details that had caught their eye. 

We also saw a portfolio of commissioned designs for limited edition stamps and so on, all immaculate.

For his demonstration, Nick produced the three works shown here. With a fluent style and easy manner, Nick reminded us that a quick sketch often has an immediacy and vitality that can easily be lost in an overworked studio effort. And if [if!] you can manage a sketch in 20 minutes or so, if it goes wrong, So What? Throw it away. And the reward is that you may have quickly captured something fresh, spontaneous and paradoxically lasting.

See also Nick's website