So, we headed off to Atlantis Art Materials in Shoreditch. It's a warehouse filled from top to bottom with art stuff. It's like an Aladdin's Cave of papers, paintbrushes, pastels and paints. It's a mecca of notebooks, sketchbooks and paper pads. I was looking for watercolour paper, and I chose a little book of recycled Khadi Papers. 

I was very controlled in Aladdin's Cave. I left with two pads of paper, a set of new watercolour brushes, some textured acrylic medium, and a lino cutter.

The texture on this paper is amazing. Each piece is a roughly the same shape and has a lovely uncut-edge to each side. The paper itself is thick but flexible, and is full of deep texture that reminds me more of linen or canvas - likely because the paper is made from recycled rags.

I've had an idea in mind for a while: I want to do lots of lovely little doodle watercolours as botanical or natural history illustrations mixed with text and an exploration of colour and texture. Then, I want to put them together and print these onto tags and fabric and all things tactile.

But where to start? So, I penciled and coloured a Fly Agaric mushroom, the eponymous mushroom which lends itself to all literature and illustrations. I was very tempted to ink on giant white spots on top of the mushroom, but they're not spots at all: they're warts. Warts!

This is as far as I got last night. This photo really doesn't do the pigment colours any justice: they're incredibly vivid, and they paint beautifully on this Khadi Papers pad. (Thank you, Winsor & Newton watercolours.)

Next step: try to loosen up a bit. Add some text. Highlight the warts (!). Paint more.