Sketching in Scotland: Day 1

I'm currently on holiday in Ardnamurchan, which is the most westerly point of the British Mainland. It's stunningly beautiful and the perfect place for some sketching.

Today was a relaxed day of shopping, eating and pottering by the rocky beach.

Back to Blogging!

It's been an embarrassingly long time since my last blog post because it has been such a busy few months.

As you may remember from previous posts, Mum and I had our first joint exhibition together during April/May. 'A Celebration of Nature' at Worcester Cathedral was a fantastic success and neither of us could have predicted how wonderful it was going to be. We had over 200 friends, family and supporters joining us for the private view evening and many more visitors during the course of the exhibition.

I made a time-lapse video of the exhibition set-up and Harvey kindly filmed the private view evening for us. Take a look below:

We had a fantastic team of volunteers supporting us during the exhibition and Mum and I also manned the exhibition for some of the time that it was open. On the Bank Holiday Monday I set up my easel and worked on a new painting of a raven.

Thank you once again to everyone who helped us make the exhibition possible and to all of our friends and family who supported us!

Once the exhibition had finished we then had a mad rush to pack orders, tidy the workshop and house ready for our open weekend. Lots of visitors came to collect their artwork and see where we work. We had homemade lemonade and lots of cakes on standby and I'm pleased to say there was nothing left by the Sunday evening!

My poor sketchbook hasn't been getting as much attention as it deserves because of all this, but I have included some sketches made during quiet moments in the Chapter House. I was practising my insects from the Reader's Digest 'Field Guide to the Butterflies & other Insects of Britain'. This is a fantastic resources book, and if you can get your hands on an older edition it has a much nicer cover.

Craft Business Inspiration Day

Mum and I really are becoming quite the double act this year. Yesterday we went to a fantastic Craft Business Inspiration Day at Beechenhill Farm, Derbyshire. It was quite a way for us to go but so worth visiting this beautiful location (plus we packed a huge picnic to keep us going!).

This was the first inspiration day run by photographer Lyndsey James, web expert Daniel Phillips and pricing and pitching pro Suzy Rai. I thoroughly recommend going to one if you get the chance. 

Greeted with tea, biscuits and goodie bags. What more can a girl ask for?!

The day consisted of different workshops and group activities designed to encourage us to think about treating our creative ventures as businesses, rather than constantly apologising and putting ourselves down for what we do (I think this must be a common thing among creatives as there was a lot of chuckling over this point!). We also learnt about the importance of building a network of fellow creatives as making can be quite isolating at times. 

Group tasks in the beautiful venue. You can't go wrong with fairy lights.

I also really enjoyed Lyndsey's mini workshop of photography tips and tricks. I've actually signed up to one of her online Photocraft courses which is coming up in June. Anyone who can talk for an hour about photography and have me understand everything they said is definitely the person to teach me!! The photos in this blog post are used with kind permission of Lyndsey, but hopefully you'll be seeing some rather snazzy photos on here in a few weeks time thanks to the course!

Lyndsey's tips on lighting.

For me, the most enjoyable part of the day was meeting so many other lovely creative people. I didn't study an art degree which, I think, is where a lot of people meet fellow creatives and support each other so it was so lovely to be part of a group of like-minded people for the day and then find everyone on Twitter afterwards!

Admiring Nicola's candy resin bracelet!

Here are the very talented makers from the day. Click on the names for links to their work.

Allsopps Bookbinders: Beautiful books! As everyone knows, I love books, so it will be no surprise to learn that I've already placed my first order with them!

Elm Tree Studio: Beautiful textiles for gifts and special occasions, although I don't think Kirsty will be too pleased if you order another nappy stacker for her to make!

English Garden Soaps: Seona wins my unofficial prize for best business cards- each one comes with a butterfly shaped sample of one of her gorgeous soaps!

HWR Designs: Wonderful textile creations. Helen brought one of her gorgeous pig bags with her and I fell completely in love with it.

Joy Interiors: Super stylish shabby chic interiors. Nicky also makes lampshades and brought a lovely tractor one with her yesterday.

Little Brown Dog Workshop: My favourite products of Susan's are her gorgeous personalised peg dolls.

Made By Daisy: Wonderfully quirky jewellery. Mum and I are admiring one of Nicola's candy resin bracelets in the photo above!

Popsyclunk: Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to chat to Sally, but she makes hand-painted personalised wooden gifts that would make fantastic christening presents.

Scavenger Annie: Another person I didn't get to talk to! Annie makes great alternative embroidery.

Tenacious Bloom: Wonderfully whimsical porcelain jewellery. The cloud earrings are my favourites!

I know that I haven't managed to include everyone in this list, so please message me if I missed you (sorry!) so I can add you to the list :).

Beautiful products for the 'show and tell'.

A huge thank you to Lyndsey, Daniel and Suzy for such a fantastic day. I have so many notes in my notebook and am really looking forward to putting them into action!

March Sketchbook and Ryan Gosling

March has been all about anatomy in my sketchbook. 

I'm trying to build my collection of artist's reference books this year so that my ever growing library of books can overflow from the shelves some more!

In the evenings I have been flicking through my anatomy books and doing some quick sketches from the examples given.

Here is a list of my anatomy collection so far. I would recommend all of them.

'Strength Training Anatomy' by Frederic Delavier

'How to Draw the Human Figure' by Louise Gordon

'Anatomy: A Complete Guide for Artists' by Joseph Sheppard

'The Human Figure: Life Drawing for Artists' by John H. Vanderpoel

'How to Draw Animals' by Jack Hamm (brilliant resource for animal anatomy)

In other news, we had some new arrivals at the farm on Tuesday: goslings! We've had a broody goose sitting on some eggs surrounded by a pile of logs in an outdoor shed for a while, but weren't holding out much hope as the only time we've ever had any goslings hatch, their parents decided to take them swimming a little too early which did not end well!

Three little goslings were wandering around happily with their mum and two dads (a very modern family!) on Tuesday morning, but when we checked the shed we found a very newly hatched gosling had been left behind. We're not sure if it's a girl or a boy yet, but we're refering to him as a 'he' because it seems so much nicer than 'it'! The little guy had been trodden on by his mum who then left the shed and didn't come back for him. He hadn't dried off from his egg at this point and was too weak to stand so we made him a little towel nest by the Aga to warm up.

Naturally, we named him Ryan Gosling.

Ryan was very weak for the first day of his life, but my brother Harvey spent all day looking after him and giving him water and chick crumbs with a paintbrush. His head was bent backwards because his muscles haven't strengthened fully yet.

Ryan has imprinted on Harv and now thinks he is his Mummy! I'm very pleased to say that he has been getting stronger every day and happily follows Harv around the garden or house! Here are some pictures from Ryan on Wednesday (his second day since hatching).

Ryan and 'Mummy'

Snuggles under Mummy's wing

A Celebration of Nature, Worcester Cathedral

Some dates for your diaries!

I've been working on a very exciting project with my Mum, ceramic artist Lit Smith, for the last 6 months or so.

We are going to be having a two person exhibition in the Chapter House of Worcester Cathedral which will be open to the public from the 27th April to the 8th May. The exhibition is titled 'A Celebration of Nature', and was initially inspired by the Green Man carvings found in the Cathedral. Mum and I are both very influenced by our beautiful surroundings in the Worcestershire countryside, so this seemed like the perfect theme for us.

The Chapter House is a stunning round stone room off the cloisters in Worcester Cathedral, and somehow seems to get bigger every time Mum and I visit!

This is a very special event to us because it is my first exhibition, and the first one that Mum and I have ever done together. We have also been lucky enough to meet with the very talented Worcester Cathedral Stonemasons who have kindly agreed to have a special display of their work at the exhibition.

Mum has created a beautiful range of pieces for the exhibition, from individual ceramic leaves to what will be a stunning collaboration with local blacksmith, Jonathan Clift. The exhibition will also include my original dip pen, ink and watercolour drawings, with prints available.

If you get the chance to visit, please be sure to sign the Visitor Book and we'd love your feedback.

Insects, Photography and Folk Music

It's been a very inspiring weekend.

Firstly, my very talented friend Beth (or Westie to me) came over for a creative weekend. She has very kindly photographed my latest creations for me. I have been working on some insect jewellery. I've always loved curiosity cabinets and specimens in museums, so I decided to have a go at creating my own 'specimens'. All of the insects in my jewellery are printed copies of my original watercolour illustrations so no living critters were harmed in the making of these!

The jewellery will be appearing in my Etsy shop very soon, but in the meantime, here is a sneak peek. My photography skills are shoddy at best, so a huge thank you to Beth for doing such a wonderful job!

Red Admiral Pendant

Ladybird Bracelet

The second part of my inspiring weekend was going to see Emily Smith live at The Artrix in Bromsgrove. This was a surprise Mother's Day present for a very unsuspecting Mum, despite me playing the 'Traiveller's Joy' album every single time I saw her for over a week!

We actually discovered Emily Smith and her band in quite a bizarre way; when we were at a Patty Griffin concert last year, the two people sitting next to us mistook me for her. Sadly I had to disappoint them as I don't have a Scottish accent and can't sing a note in tune! We were so curious about her though, that we looked her up and loved her music!

We had a fantastic evening and I thoroughly recommend going if you can catch the rest of the tour. The Artrix definitely wins our prize for best wheelchair facilities and friendly staff. They really couldn't have been more helpful. We're already planning our next visit!

I love the storytelling in folk music and now have a newfound appreciation of surprisingly cheerful murder ballads! Here is 'The Twa' Sisters' from a different performance.

Here is a little video of 'Traiveller's Joy' taken on my phone last night:

To top off our perfect evening we even got to meet Emily and her husband, Jamie McClennan, who were both lovely!

What's in my sketchbook: February

This month I discovered a book called 'The Bible of Illuminated Letters'. It's a really interesting resource because you can find out about the history of illuminated letters and how these have changed over time, but also learn step-by-step how to create your own.

I didn't have all of the inks and materials to hand so I just had a go at sketching a few of the examples out. I then did some speedy colouring with good old felt tip pen.

Ottonian 'K'

Gothic 'Q'

Neo-Classical 'E'. I think this style of lettering is my
favourite.

Whenever I teach drawing to children, I always make sure that nobody uses a rubber. I think, especially in your sketchbook, the best way to learn is by making mistakes and drawing over your work until it looks the way you want it to. To prove that I practise what I preach, I've included a sketch of a deer that I've altered. I began by sketching a deer skull and then added the features to it. If you look closely, you will see that I changed the position of the nose because it was initially too low.

Unsurprisingly, I have some new books, so March's sketches are going to be all about anatomy!