I've just completed a colossal artwork for Ashurst Train Station on the edge of the New Forest. It's just shy of 17m in width and depicts New Forest scenes and wildlife from the age of steam to the modern day, and across the seasons too. Originally planned as a painted mural to weave around the ins and outs of the old station building, it transpired that the wall was just too damp to paint on. That was fortunate for me as it meant moving to a large format print, allowing me to work more within my comfort zone (by which I mean, here, in the warm and dry).

Ashurst & Colbury Community Group and the New Forest Community Rail Partnership were brilliant in giving me complete free rein to do whatever I wanted, allowing me to cram in all sorts of creatures and plants, the sort of thing I love to do. There was no pressure for me to draw in a more realistic manner, but I decided that, as this was to greet visitors to the New Forest as they stepped onto the platform, a cartoon illustration may have been out of context.

I approached the whole job like a giant children's book illustration, using the same colouring technique I used for Treasure Beyond Measure. This means there are no graduated fills – instead, blocks of colour are blended into one another with gazillions of tiny hatched lines. It's not a quick process, but it's my preferred way of working at present. 

The artwork goes off to Splash Display to be large-format printed shortly, then a colouring-in version with the wildlife labeled needs to be sent too. There's a grand reveal of the whole illustration, in situ at Ashurst Train Station, this Saturday, the 5th April, from 11am. I'll be there, armed with a sketch pad, to do some on-demand cartoon creatures.