I was actually listening to that awesome song by the Church (Under The Milky Way) and it inspired me to paint my signature cockatoo in a starry night scene. I love that song so much, it gives me goosebumps whenever I hear it. I didn't grow up with it because I hail from the UK, but since living here and hearing it, it has become one of my favourites. I love listening to music as much as I do painting. I always have it up loud in my studio and there are quite a few subtle music references in my work.

This Cockatoo features quite a bit in my work lately. Each time I paint him, he becomes more abstracted and graphical and has become my 'signature cockatoo'. I begin my art process with sketches from life that slowly evolve over time to become more and more stylised. This cockatoo is a perfect example of a subject that has been re-worked until it is recognisably my work.

It's unusual for my work to have a background since I tend to favour the white space, in this painting I have made a feature of the watercolour paint behaviour so there are lots of random watermarks, dark and light patches creating a marbling effect, and in places it doesn't go all the way to the edges, revealing glimpses of the white deckled edges of the paper.

At the end of last summer I snapped off a piece of frangipani from my tree and popped it in a big vase. It lasted for most of the winter on my dining table and made me feel summery even when it was grey and miserable outside. I took plenty of sketches from my 'specimen' and you will also see it featured quite a bit in my work from the past year.

I like to paint with Chinese calligraphy brushes, varying the paint consistency from thick and opaque to a watery wash which results in lovely random watermarks on the work. The intricate white line work and mark making over the flat two dimensional forms is the part of my painting process I enjoy the most. Every painting of mine includes many hours of thin line work created with a small brush and white paint. Most evenings I can be found in my studio with a glass of wine (listening to music) adding tiny white marks to my paintings.

Cockatoos feature lots in my work, because they are so awesome. We often hear large flocks of them circling the skies above our house at dusk and screeching, we always stop what we're doing to go outside and marvel at them, it's such a treat since we live in the inner city.