Bonnie Scotland

We have just returned from a fantastic holiday to Ardnamurchan (the most westerly point of the British mainland). The West Coast of Scotland is one of my very favourite places. We have spent many a family holiday visiting the islands, but Ardnamurchan has a special place in our hearts, hence this being the fourth visit.

Ardnamurchan, known as 'Europe's rainforest' for the spectacular plant and wildlife, is far too beautiful for me to ever be able to justify it in words. Our wildlife sightings this year include deer, pine martens, otters, seals and mink.

We will be back!

Sketching in Scotland: Day 6

Today was another fantastic day. We spent the morning on a wildlife 4x4 tour around Ardnamurchan and saw some incredible sights. It was a very inspiring day- much more to come on this in the next week or so as there are so many things I want to draw from the day!

Tonight is our final evening in Ardnamurchan. It's very sad to be leaving but I'm looking forward to seeing all of our lovely animals again, and we already have plans for the next visit!

To celebrate in style, we lit the fire bowl and toasted marshmallows, and our drinks, to a wonderful holiday.

Sketching in Scotland: Day 5

Today we visited a beautiful beach called Ardtoe. Here are some sketches from on the beach before I was too distracted by climbing on the rocks!

Sketching in Scotland: Day 4

Today has been my favourite day of the holiday by far. 

We paid a visit to the Ardshealach Smokehouse and stocked up on all sorts of delicious treats for tonight's supper. If you are a foodie, I definitely recommend checking out their website.

We then pottered on the beach whilst munching on some whiskey fudge from the smokehouse. I took the opportunity for some very speedy sketching here.

After that I had an amazing lunch at Glenuig Inn- an enormous plate of local prawns followed by homemade ice cream. Hours later, I'm still so full that I'm struggling to move!

When we visited Ardnamurchan two years ago, we came across a venison shop selling deer skulls complete with their magnificent antlers. We bought two but I've always regretted not getting one of my own. The venison shop was our first stop but nobody was there. We had a phone call from a man named Fergie later in the day who told us he would be at the shop for us to stop by on our way back from lunch.

Fergie was one of those amazing one-off characters you know you'll never forget. He had a really good long chat with us and told us that his son (who runs the hotel and shop) is about to shoot in The Commonwealth Games and wanted to know all about where the Scottish side of our family were from. He was really pleased that we already owned some of the stag skulls from our previous visit, and even more so that we will be displaying them as they are and not cutting them up (apparently lots of people turn them into walking stick handles which I think is a crime!).

Fergie then told us that he is an accordion player and will be featured on BBC Alba on Thursday at 9.00pm. We asked for his full name so we could look up his music, at which point he stopped us leaving and whipped out a CD from his car boot which he very kindly gave to us.

Little did we know we'd been talking to Fergie 'The Ceilidh King' MacDonald!

PS. Have eaten the smokehouse supper since writing this and the Smoked Scottish Dunlop is to die for!

Sketching in Scotland: Day 3

Today consisted of a visit to the local wildlife hide followed by another relaxed afternoon during which I completed my online photography course.

I quickly sketched one of the small islands visible from the hide. A boat came past just as I was finishing so I added it at the last minute.

There were about twenty seals on the rocks in front of us. My favourite was a young one who decided it was much more fun to swim and jump than nap with the others! I could only see them clearly with the help of binoculars and a camera lens, so this was a very speedy sketch.

Sketching in Scotland: Day 2

Today has been a bit of a showery day, so I decided to get the watercolours out and paint the sunset from one of yesterday's photos. 

The saying that if you wait five minutes the weather will change in Scotland is very appropriate for Ardnamurchan! By this afternoon the weather was much sunnier again, so I was back outside sketching. Our cottage is right on the edge of a sea loch so we have our own private rocky beach with benches and a fire bowl. 

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.

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

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!

What's in my sketchbook: January

I must admit, I've found my sketchbook challenge a lot more difficult to stick to than I'd expected. Although I haven't managed to do something every day, I have been pretty close. My aim for February, is to do something every day.

My beautiful Lisa Parker sketchbook

Some of my many notes I made when reading 'S.' this month

I am completely addicted to Skillshare courses at the moment. If you haven't come across it before, it's a website where artists and designers can upload online courses to teach you new skills from Photoshop to starting a fashion business. Like most creative people, I find it hard to enjoy learning something new if a course is too rigid and prescriptive. I like to learn the basics and then have the freedom to play and experiment so I can find my own way of doing it. Skillshare is perfect for this because you can watch online videos at your own pace and complete course tasks if you want to as well.

I decided to have a go at a calligraphy course this month, partly because of the New Year sale, and partly because it will be a useful skill for one of my projects this month. I am ambidextrous, but write with my left hand, so I often find that this makes me quite clumsy. My initial calligraphy attempts in my sketchbook were very blotchy and smudged, but as I began to get the hang of it, I really enjoyed it. Calligraphy is definitely something I would like to continue practising and I feel some more reference books may be added to my collection in the coming months!

A rather messy early attempt!

Progress!

I have also been drawing some very quick stag sketches for my own reference, and also to work out what I would like my next exhibition piece to look like.

Deer eye close-up sketch

Playing around with layout