Past and future works
This week has seen commissions finished and also scoping missions looking ahead to workshops later in the month, and a band I am obsessed with.
Friday morning and it looks to be another sunny one, I hope to get out in the fresh air before the seasons change again. But first I wanted to share a few things from the last five days. This sub stack is merging my website posts and my monthly newsletter so it feels like a new way to catalogue my work and to show you a little behind the scenes thinking. So far I don’t feel the need for everything to be perfect, which is nice 😊
Restaurants to visit
Below is a commission for the Sottish Field magazine, a beautiful glossy look at Scotland and the landscape of the Highlands which comes out every month and for a couple of years now I have been sketching the location for the restaurant review. This is The Forager in Dollar and you can see here I often tape my watercolour paper to a board which helps keep the paper flat once the watercolour is applied.
For now I enjoy sketching the locations from photographs but one day I hope to visit all these lovely destinations around the country, I certainly know a few good place to eat!
Sketching Locations
This month I have a couple of sketching workshops coming up. I keep my work as varied as possible as I tend to get a little bored or lose focus if not excited by the next challenge so for this year at least I am only taking on two workshops per month during the summer months. And this week I have been scoping out the destinations.
The first date is Friday 17th May at 10am to 12.30pm with Arienas Collective, a group of Edinburgh creatives I love being part of. We regularly meet up and share ideas and recommendations as well as sharing a lovely base in the New Town from which to host our workshop events. For the 2.5 hour session on the 17th I will be taking sketches along to Circus LAne near Stockbridge. We will draw both quick details and more challenging perspectives on this wonderful way to spend a couple of hours in Edinburgh.
The second Sketching Workshop date is Thursday morning again 10am to 12.30pm at Lauriston Castle and this one will be all about nature. There will be a little of the details in the architecture of the 16th-century tower house but also the gorgeous patterns and colours in the flowers and vegetation in the grounds which overlook the Firth of Forth.
And Finally
Some of you will remember my 100 Cats in 100 Days sketches from 2022 which I made when my family lost our beloved cat of 21 years, Mocha. The resulting book of sketches is now available and everyone who has seen it has their favourites.
A couple of mine were the Tartan Cats and I have decided to revisit these and make them into something more, adding more cats to the family in various colours of patterned fur! I will make these into a set of cards, perhaps a tea towel and maybe even a pack of cards if I get to 52 tartan cats!
Impossible to tell so far, but I do love sleeping cat as she reminds me of a beloved 20 year old puss who recently passed.
Just recieved my copy of 100 cats! I’m delighted!