Holidays or her husband's musical gigs are events she keenly anticipates. " I love it when Colin is due to play. I know I'll go along and I'll get lots of drawing in."

From the ages of 16 to 19, Hawthorne financed her own travels with both drawing and music. "I played tin whistle, Irish music, and used to go busking round Europe with friends. When I wasn't playing, I used to draw. And we'd sell the drawings I did. I financed every holiday like that."

Re-located in London for college, she lived in Ladbroke Grove: an area with genial street life and vivid musical ties. "Notting Hill Carnival blew me away, especially the steel bands. 

"The players are so relaxed, yet everything is moving in rhythm. The carriage sways and the music carries and the kids laugh and wave. I got absolutely infatuated with drawing the Carnival scene."

She felt the same way towards jazz and the young British players who emerged around 1985. "I've always loved drawing live music. When somebody's playing out, when they've got the right attitude, it speaks directly to you; it inspires you."

I went to see Courtney Pine, for instance, very early on. Although I didn't sketch him, I vividly remember storing what he looked like in my mind. Just the shape of him,

and the glint of the sax."

Hawthorne also met her husband through her attraction to jazz. With their young daughter, the trio now comprise an artistic team. Salmon plays while Fiona draws with Sasha watching.

Hawthorne has come to view how she works as musical in its own way. "When music plays, and it's something to do with real self-expression, somehow you draw in tune with that. When there's a really good solo, I'll often come out with a very nice drawing. I don't spend long on any one thing; I just fill a sketchbook out of one session. Then, out of that sketchbook I might do two or three drawings that actually hit."

continue