Martin Evans is an urban designer and director of a small architecture office involved in residential and conceptual design work. He also runs a small artists residency space in Tuscany, Italy.

As the principal, I get the opportunity to draw every day and I thoroughly enjoy being able to communicate through my pen. Holding a pen or pencil is an important part of my creative thinking process and drawing is such a cohesive and impulsive way to communicate ideas. I have always kept sketchbooks on my travels, both for work and vacation and enjoy the connection with a place sitting in the sun sketching what I see. Recent travels have allowed me to develop sketch books in Italy, Morocco, California and Denmark.

Painting was something new for me, having not done any painting since A-Levels, I decided to take up painting through evening classes and began in 2012 attending various classes at the Slade, St Martins and Hampstead School of Art. These have given me an excellent grounding for moving into my art. I enjoy painting portraits, still-lifes and landscapes mainly in acrylic - although I am slowly moving to oils. I have sketched and painted in my regular haunts of Hampstead Heath, Italy and London for many years.