Dorry Spikes graduated in illustration from Kingston College, and now lives in Ceredigion, Wales, as well as occasionally on a sailing boat. Her work is inspired by her travels and the salty stories she hears along the way. We asked her three questions. 

Tell us a little about yourself, and the inspiration behind your work.

I have always loved books and illustration. My artwork is inspired by my sailing adventures and also by travel stories - books like Bruce Chatwin's 'In Patagonia', Dave Eggers's 'How We Are Hungry' and Tove Jansson's 'The Summer Book'. Visually, I really admire illustrators whose brave and playful spirit shines through in their work. You can see that they're constantly experimenting and evolving; it's difficult to work with such honesty and fearlessness and I hope to get there one day.

Illustrating can be quite a solitary existence and so I like to get out drawing lively street scenes and busy harbours. It can be challenging, and it takes me a while to loosen up and shake off any self-consciousness about drawing in public. Port cities are my favourite places to sit and draw because they feel timeless and graceful in their interaction with the rest of the world. I'll sit there with dusty feet, swapping a drawing for someone's story. The wild west of Wales and its folklore has also had a strong influence on my work. The way that my parents' generation chose to come out here in the seventies and settled in the hills to live the good life reminds me to do what I love for a living.

Tell us about a piece you've designed with an interesting story.

I was commissioned to draw an illustrated map of a researcher’s travels in South America, based on the wonderfully vivid travel journals she wrote when she was out there working on a documentary. I was able to canoe up the Amazon and jump into the inky Ecuadorian surf from my desk in Wales. This is amongst my favourite kinds of commission and one of the reasons I love illustrating: I get to travel vicariously through drawing.

The Work-Shop takeover will be loosely themed on gardens. What's your favourite piece for the display?

The 'Rare Birds' print, because it celebrates the influential women in my life in a big bird-filled tree, from mad aunties, close friends and sisters to the art teachers of my childhood. While drawing it I kept thinking of the exquisite glass case of humming birds that's displayed in the Natural History Museum. It's one of the places I used to make pilgrimages to when out on weekly location drawing trips whilst studying illustration at University. I find that museums are really good for this kind of inspiration and visual research.

'The Owl Service' print I'm displaying at Work-shop is based on Alan Garner's version of the Blodeuwedd story from the Mabinogion. It's a magical story of love going wrong, full of passion. In Blodeuwedd, the princess made of flowers betrays her husband so she gets turned into an owl. The print contains drawings of fragments of china I found whilst digging in the garden. I like to imagine the stories behind the flotsam and jetsam of people's lives.