Pink is the colour but frankly it never used to be. As a tomboy child I saw pink a weak, insipid and submissive, and I rebelled against being branded with it just because I happened to be born a girl. But whether I ran from it or occasionally tried to embrace it, it didn't make an iota of difference, because it's not pink's fault, is it? It was my own preconceptions playing out.

This summer, however, pink has kept me going. And orange. Preferably together – as clashing and as in-your-face as you can get. Check out the images on my web home page or Instagram at the works I've been producing this summer and you'll see I've been exploring mixing the hottest, brightest, pinkest and orangey-est shades I can.

I admit it has been a case of needing to inject as much joy into the process and my mindset as I can and I found the juiciest resolution by mixing together neon acrylic inks magenta and orange to really amp them up. It's a glow that positively sings!

A slight – okay, big! – hiccup in the process was being unable to scan fluorescent magenta effectively: it shows up as white instead. Fluorescent pink won't replicate correctly whichever setting you use, and I've yet to find a feasible solution online.

It hasn't deterred me though. I'm attempting to work vivid magic into other colours now which I hope to share in coming weeks and on my newsletter. Building on my experience using inks and watercolour my singular aim is maintaining purity and vivacity of colour, which appears to have become a sort of a trademark in my artworks, so I'm told.

I've already tried ashes as a textural component in acrylic painting [blog here], to take it a step further I've been itching to try making natural pigments to create watercolour paints using materials and plants from the garden or local fields. Thing is, I use watercolour in liquid form so my own experiments are not quite as instructions seem to be online. I believe most of those refer to watercolour pans which are small, solid dried blocks.

I woke around the same time to a fiery sunrise, an orange ball of fire creeping over the hill. Nature and art entwined as ever, and really loving these colours.