Ross Shire Journal

Fridays 'Ross shire Journal' had a couple of mentions about our Russian trip.

heres the on-line version here...

'Rags to Riches' clutter

So the Russian trip preparation ticks onwards, but the pile of work I need finished by September sits albatross like upon me, exhaustion. Next two days I'm off to Scotlands Housing Expo, to run workshops for the Highland Council in Recycled crafts, " Rags to Riches " we shall be cutting weaving, knotting and such like, my van is full of willow wands, sticks and rags. I shall also be spending the night in the van so had better move the sticks first.

meanwhile my 'studio' is a complete tip ( and yes I paint canvases upside down & sideways, whatever works ), the rest of the house isn't much better as books of celtic mythology, canvases, half packed bags, paper, fabric, looms, glass shards & mosaics all threaten to collide. Dinnae worry by tuesday morning all will be calm & organised & then I can discuss thoughts about myths, epics, archetypes and art.

news round up

• Russia trip features on Hi-Arts website.
• starting in October I will be tutoring a painting course in lochcarron on behalf of the Skye & Wester Ross College ( subject to numbers ) details here
• the Lochcarron Tuesday Art group is taking a break during August while everyone is busy.
• Mosaic panel 2 is finished;
  
• Been gathering Willow for dreamcatcher/ recycled textile workshops Friday & Saturday at the Housing Expo . Doubled up this task with helping out at the Smithy heritage centre where the grounds have been sadly neglected over the last 5 years. The new committee have plans to get the project all back up and running again, so Rich, the dog and I went to help out by wrestling the overgrown willow dome back into shape. I now have a giant pile of willow to strip, no jokes about 'strip the willow' please.

• Also nearly finished the first big canvas painting a couple of tweaks & starting the next one.
• this time next week on our way to Russia! you should see the list of work I have to finish before then !

Country Day

Final week or so to prepare for Russia trip and finish a month or so of work, its just not happening...mild panic setting in. Meanwhile Friday 30th was the Kirkton woodland & heritage group's country day- I'd got my months all muddled up & thought I would be away when it was on so hadn't prepared any crafty demonstrations to do, which I much prefer to being sat behind a table selling wares.

This day makes a change from the rain cancelled lochcarron games as there is a strong conservation, environment, rural skills element to it. Sadly of course it was still raining, heavily, the field was a bog. there were some great sights, many which I failed to catch on camera. Brain the ferret had come along with keeper Chris to play Ferret bingo.













  Jim of Asgard Crafts was doing metal casting with a brilliant bellows and small stone oven he'd made. Henry Fosbrook was over from the east coast with his woodland instruments, I knew Henry from the highlands alternative/ green scene 20 years ago, always good to catch up.

 Margaret Beaton spinning, always a hit with visitors. The usual range of homebaking from all the domestic goddesses in the area. Tom and Leslie Kilbride with their yurt doing natural dying. Les Bates as Gandaft looking like a community woodlands shaman and lots of worthy conservation organisations. The organisers did a great job, and the staff lunches were deeelicious as ever.

I sold very little, which is typical of this season, there simply isn't the number of visitors around, and those that are -aren't spending much, many local businesses are expressing that its a very poor season this year. All of which makes me panicy about what to do to earn enough to live off, but it boils down to not really having choices up here. The only paid employment is very part time seasonal cleaning/ waitressing, which would earn less than my freelance art or minimum wage manual labour with boys who talk about drink & cars. I am too old to tolerate either. So we'll see where Russia takes my art & I'll go on another hunt for decent PAID illustration work when I get back, I'm also doing some art teaching with the Skye college- details to follow. but with all the cuts & businesses going under its tough times ahead in the UK for many.

comics workshop

Monday- did another comics workshop at Drumnadrochit, yes thats the village next to Loch Ness ( which I flew over the other week! ) surprisingly the children didn't all draw Nessie stories, they were full of stories about the silly things that tourists say or think regarding the monster, but at the same time the children seemed to have no doubts about the beasties existence. I wonder if its like Santa, and stops appearing when they're old enough to get cynical ?  The monster is a great tourist attraction, yet folks are too embarrassed about it to use it as some sort of highland branding. Luckily at Hi-Ex the highland Comic Expo, we have no such qualms.
Meanwhile, comic workshop ? normally participants coming to a comic workshop would be interested in drawing comics, or often they are teenage girls who want to draw manga style, not necessarily draw stories. the summer holidays are different of course, I can get an awkward mixture of local children who have been delivered by parents desperate for a break, and tourist children who can be of the type academic, competitive, not getting dirty type. It was a new challenge to me however to have to entertain for 5 hours a child who thinks comics are babyish, doesn't like stories, humans, characters, drawing or in fact anything -this at a 'How to draw comics' workshop- we survived, not sure if my pens did especially the ones he put up his nose. The others were lovely though & this flip chart drawing of the polar express was a masterpiece, the lad who did it was rightly very proud of himself.

art buying scam

I do a lot of my business through e-mail and website, I will get requests from complete strangers for paintings and commissions, These paintings are often for wedding gifts, anniversary or birthdays, the client can often not know much about art or be sure how it works or what they want. There is of course a deal of trust on both sides, but common sense is also required to protect myself. Usually I build up some rapport with art buyers & will get to know then afterwards. Art is not just another commodity, people like the context, the story behind the painting & the creative process, it means something to them and to me the artist.

So when Matthew Joe e-mailed me asking about a painting for a wedding anniversary gift for his parents, there was nothing unusual in this, his grammar indicated that english was not the first language, while he had an english sounding name. Suspicion was aroused by him asking for my web address, so why would he want my art if he hadn't already seen it ? where has he got my e-mail from if not the website ? I gave him the details of artwork available & to hand, but he chose two water themed paintings off the website- a simple misunderstanding as these are only available as prints I explained. However this sentence, which he repeated twice was not right-

"Meanwhile, I don't want you to bother your self concerning the shipment i have a shipping company come for the pickup  in your gallery also they will be the one to make the packing, just get  back to me with the price of the art work so that we can make some progress."


which shipping company ?  only a select few shipping companies operate on the west here, why didn't he mention their name? if he was a big business man why not have company details on his e-mails ? why use a yahoo AND gmail e-mail address ?


He then chose another 6 paintings from the available list, 6 paintings? for a wedding anniversary gift ? what eclectic taste his parents have, waterfalls, technical firefighting image, fairy story whimsy and abstract landscape? I had by this time googled his e-mail address's;


matthew.joe1@yahoo.com
matthew.joe212@gmail.com

and found 'him' on a list of scammers;

I couldn't work out what the catch was, If I waited for a cheque to clear? didn't give account details etc. So it turns out it works like this, they order something to buy, using a third party for shipping or such, send a cashier cheque, which the banks may well cash, but later you will be liable when it turns out to be a fake.. but its not the artwork they're after, they send 'extra' payment in the cheque to cover the shipping, you have to sent the balance via western union, which of course is you out of pocket, as there is no shipping company. It seems he is targeting all the members of the Highland Open Studios Directory.

more information about fraud etc here

I am furious! at no point did I believe I was going to sell hundreds of ££'s worth of art, I am not one to count chickens. But to try & rip off an artist ? according to the Scottish Artists Union the average wage of a Scottish artist is £5K per annum, I earn a lot less from mine. We are not exactly the decadent capitalists of the western world. Also artists, being poor, artistic natured & optimists might well be easy prey, also the internet is a wonderful useful tool, but criminals like this leave a whole generation afraid of computers, left out in the cold because they've seen on crime watch about ID theft, scammers, viruses all those urban myths and scare stories. It's almost designed to stop people using the potential of the internet, people who are afraid are easier to control, people who are afraid are more likely to turn on each other. Most humans are good, most humans are trustworthy and genuine, scams like this disgust me because they prey upon hope and trust.

I'm blogging as it seems about all I can do to vent my anger, although I intend stringing Matthew along a bit more to waste some of his time, I wish there was an e-mail version of a football whistle blown down the phone. I guess the internet is a bit like the wild west, a whole new frontier with carpet baggers, freak shows, houses of ill repute, gambling, snake oil peddlers, criminal gangs, cons, thugs, but mostly good people just trying to make a living.

ladies faces

finally got all the comic pages that I had to colour done yesterday ( although more arrived today ), so now onto the paintings I need to do, but first a wee warm up, dying to paint things which will feed into the Russian art symposium theme, 'Breath of the epic'- so heres some painted ladies sketches . Now I'm painting the first of the two big canvases....

Space Hop

Every Summer the libraries run a reading scheme to encourage youngsters to keep reading throughout the holidays, this year's was Space Hop. Yasmeen the librarian organised for me to do Space Hop junk art workshop today at the Gairloch library. We had the full compliment of children, both local and visitors who all  got stuck in and made some brilliant imaginative space ships, planets, flying saucers and aliens out of old containers and packaging. They came in shyly, but went out zapping each other with space zappers and debating the size of the universe, Saturn's rings and what happens to fire in the vacuum of space.

Free press, mosaic & more colours

More publicity for the Russia trip with this piece in the West Highland Free Press this week. Our Visas arrived today, big sighs of relief for Lynn & I !

The Smithy Mosaic progresses, using yacht varnish so each layer taking ages to dry. Next panel will have crofting history images & 3rd panel modern scenes.

also chugging along with the Slaughtermans creed colouring. The sample above features a flashback scene, Which we're going for in sepia tones over Stephen Downey's lovely pencils, Stephen has recently got work drawing for the Torchwood magazine,  and deservedly so! 

meanwhile the theme of the Russian Symposium is cooking away in the background, I'm reading lots of folklore, listening to folksie ballads and traditional music, things are desperate to come out- but I have to dig in & get all this other work done before I can play !

certificate & colouring

Heres the photo from the award ceremony last week.

meanwhile as well as plodding on varnishing the heritage Mosaic, prepping for the Russia trip with Lynn Bennett-MacKenzie and so on, I've mostly been glued to the digital drawing board getting seized to my chair working on comic colouring for Slaughtermans Creed sample page above. Its written by Cy Dethan who has done a lovely write up about my recent work on his blog here.

Commitment to Excellence awards

In the Fire service it often feels like an uphill struggle, the retained service personnel give a huge commitment as does their families. We struggle to stay within the station area and find enough other work in remote villages, we struggle with old equipment, only 2.5 hours a week to maintain and test equipment, to train, to stay up to date, to stay fit and the computer work, the paperwork. the memo's, targets, quotas, contradicting rules, all rain from on high, It presents no career path, with the retainer fee at £2.5 K per annum, we're certainly not in it for the money. This is why I am a Union rep to try and make sure the issues at station level get heard higher up and to look after my crew. In this climate then, I was rather surprised to receive notification that I had been shortlisted for a commitment to excellence award in the community and Youth Engagement category. So myself and Rich headed to the awards ceremony last night, slightly cynically and awkwardly in my ill fitting uniform.

The Inverness Town house venue was also intimidating, with a host of Councillors, the Fire chief , lord lieutenant and lord provost to meet us. There were some amazing artifacts and paintings there including a lovely bronze Roman horse head. We were however immediately made welcome with the speakers and Chief mingling and chatting. Talking to them it became apparent that they understood the pressures that we are under and were well aware of the issues we face, the impact our job has on everyday life and our loved ones. The people there were not the upper managers whom I expected to see but many retained Firefighters, men and women, from the far corners of the Highlands and Islands. All the speeches reflected admiration and appreciation for our work.

During the evening the 20 year service medals of good conduct were given out, one was to my Watch manager. these guys definitely deserve a medal, the average term of retained service is 7 years. 20 is quite an achievement.

Then the awards, the nominations were read out for each person and why they'd been nominated, every single one was much deserved and we heard stories of great bravery, tenacity and efforts beyond the call of duty. I am very proud to have met these men & women and more so to have been nominated too. I had been nominated for the work I did over the last couple of years creating a partnership between the Fire service and a Young Carer support charity, It was of course a team effort with other people still working on it now. We raised awareness, taught the fire service how to help young carers and their families, taught the children Fire safety, produced resources, power-points, information cards, and eventually a children's Fire Safety book which I illustrated and has been distributed to all highland schools.

It was for me, simply a matter of putting my different jobs together and it worked brilliantly. It was wonderful to hear about the other projects that had been going on and see them justly awarded. I was quite happy not to 'win' the category but still didn't escape escape the embarrassment of having to take to the stage for presentation and photographs however.

Everyone I spoke to felt the same as me, while we were proud to have our achievements recognised we were all also rather embarrassed and wished that all the other Firefighters and support staff could have been there to have experienced the appreciation and gratitude for the work that EVERY firefighter does.

If I get any official photos I'll post them up. All in all a great night was had, It was lovely to get a chance to meet & talk to so many great people. Then of course there was the after party... but thats another story!

Russia trip approaches

The BBC have done an article today about Lynn Bennett-MacKenzie and my trip to the International Art symposium in Elabuga, Russia. excitement mounts.The story looks like its been picked up by some papers too, we'll keep you posted.

Going to the symposium and the inspiration of Lynn's work is giving me a confidence boost to follow my own artistic path and not get swayed by everyone else's expectations. Especially in the current economic climate, I've made very few sales locally this summer from tourism, there are no easy markets, so nothing to loose by ploughing on & doing what I want art wise. Its taken a while to get here.

meanwhile I am desperately trying to update my neglected website, bare with me, in the meantime the blog is the best place for the latest news and work.

should work time directive apply to artists ?

working flat out at Colours for 'Slaughtermans Creed' a book by Cy Dethan, pencils ( and some inks & colours ) by Stephen Downey, inks by Andy  Brown, design & letters by Nic Wilkinson ( too tired to look up links for everyone...next time ! ), book being published by Markosia..soon. Not for children or Veggies ( except me as I'm a tough childish Veggie ).

I haven't any fluffy kittens to offset Cy's dark imaginings, but instead and to unseize my desk bound bones I'm also working on this historical mosaic.The whole thing will be over 3.5 metres long eventually & will go on the outside wall of the Lochcarron Smithy Heritage Centre. panel 1 is ancient and natural history. It's made of scrap glass kindly provided by Muirne of Arrina's 'Shards' go visit her lovely stained glass workshop if you are ever up North Applecross.

I'll blog about the rest of Junes adventure, and Russia Soon !  oh and I've been short-listed for a Fire service 'commitment to excellence' award, community and youth engagement. I presume to do with the Fire Safety book I illustrated, ceremony on Friday more news later.

Dreamed I was flying high above the trees, over the hills

life balance ?

art is balancing input and output, feeding the subconsious then creating. recently life has speeded up, rushing past me in a break neck adventure, no time to rest or breathe, no time to be, to doodle & art-play. sky, sea and stories filling by brain, coming out in dreams if not pictures. 

the dials are all spinning, juggling plates.

work life balance, this summer isn't seeing much money coming in, the projects who's deadlines hang over me are all long term strategy's. But big adventures still have bills to pay. Jet-set hobo ( thanks to David Baillie for that expression ), rock and rolling, gathering no moss. all work and no play, well plenty of play just no rest, can feel exhaustion kicking in. art is my rest and play.

Rich bought me a flying lesson voucher for my birthday back in March. I'd been savoring it for calm, peaceful times, but we've realised there aren't any - so shoehorned it into the schedule today. It was incredible ! lovely it! Highland Aviation, highly recommended and well worth the money !

ART?
will re jog the website as soon as there is time, tweak the layout, add paypal buttons to sell prints.
will blog up the remaining section of Junes adventures.
am working flat out to colour Slaughtermans Creed as the inked pages come in.
am working flat out on interpretive panel historical glass mosaic.
am prepping for Russia trip ? have I not blogged about that YET ? later!
am working flat out on large canvases of figurative work for exhibition at the airport in September.
delivered 4 paintings to strathpeffers 'Around' gallery today, theme of 'Fire'.
HIE doing consultation about businesses in our community, about to let loose the rants, but its not just our community its the UK has a rotten attitude to art, comics, illustration, crafts...but thats another one for another day.

more soon..gotta dash

Children paddling

Finally made a start on one of the big canvases today, I need a marathon push to get everything done on time this month, and of course real life human events conspire to slow my progress. However fingers crossed this will work. bulking the main areas in emulsion & paint oddments, frustrating waiting for layers to dry, will have to get in discipline of working on comic colouring between layers.  Oy! cat don't drink the paint water !
 meanwhile I'll be dropping some firefighting paintings off to the Around Gallery in Strathpeffer this week for their July exhibition on the theme Fire.

the giant of lochcarron

Heres another wee film.  There was an animation project in the village, a couple of animation graduates came to combine printmaking and film, I dragged my art class into the project. while they all worked on stop motion cut out projects, I didn't have time to join in, so worked this film up at home over a couple of nights.
The Giant is our local mountain, its name is Fuar Tholl ( cold hole ) , but its known locally as ' wellingtons nose' . I prefer to think of it as Fionn, the Irish giant, as there is a stone at its base in Corrie Fionn arach, where Fionn was reputed to tie up his hunting hounds. the chain marks are on the stone.

again, I wish there was more time and more computer power to do these things better.

'Who's Afraid ?' short film

This is the short film I made in 2006. There was a competition to pitch a film idea which I got a place on. I got a loan of software, a laptop & wacom tablet & 8 weeks to teach myself from scratch how to draw & animate digitally. It was a painful process!  The music was thrown in at the last minutes, I have no idea how to edit sound files, very very luckily the lovely band Fribo lent me their music & it worked brilliantly. This was showcased at the 2006 Inverness Film festival.

The story about the little girl & wolf was inspired by a reacurring dream I'd had in the 90's. I wanted to explore themes around friendship, trust & zenophobia. I storyboarded out a full length version which was a lot more in depth, however in 3 minutes this was as far as I could go. The girl and wolf have since popped up in many paintings of mine and are not ready to be put away yet, maybe one day i'll get to make the full version...and better animated!

Junes adventures part 1

a mad couple of weeks, so much happening, no time to do art. Art requires a balance between input & output, that is real life inspiration and interaction going in, and Art development creative output coming out. Masses of the former as we've traveled about recently, none of the later. Also we normally don't see many grown-ups, living so remotely, there is always plenty of time to digest and mull any social interaction, adding it to the pot of inspiration. However this month its been incredible how many amazing people we have been lucky enough to spend time with, my head is brimming with ideas !

Saturday 19th June
Belfast Puppet Picnic and parade. such a riot of music, colour smiles, laughter, dancing creativity community projects dancing their way through Belfast, it bought a lump to my throat, goosebumps, something timeless and magical, international, so many memories of festivals from another lifetime, colour & joy.People coming together in the sunshine, I could have watched them all day.

Sunday 20th June
I read folklore & went over some work while the boys went swimming & played computer games. my head starting to spin with giants, ghosts, seal-folk, tasks in threes, lost worlds and layers of metaphor long lost.

Monday 21st June
Met up with Micheal Carroll of Quantum Prophecy books fame & the brilliant Leonia. Had a fantastic day doing the Antrim coast tour, Torr point, Carrick a Rede rope bridge, Bushmills, the Giants causeway. The weather was idyllic, the sea colours mesmerising. The company wonderful, ideas bouncing around.

 Tuesday 22nd June
a day off, to do more folk stories, fairy stories & celtic tales reading. reminded how much of an early influence tales like Thomas the rhymer and Tam y Linn were.

Wednesday 23rd June
Pearl jam concert in Belfast. had fan club tickets, queued early with the fan club, coralled in pens like sheep, 3 hours people watching, many familiar faces from the London gig last year, admiring lovely tattoos, many people from all over Europe following the tour. got in early, got 3rd row standing position right up near Mike McCreadys side of the stage. Ben Harper and relentless 7 supporting. Ben's voice incredible, the music & guitars are great, prog rocky, folk, blues, lots of influences, but I could listen to his voice alone endlessly.
Then after such a long wait, the stage set, the lights dimmed, the intro music I'd heard at last years concert came on, the tears started, the crowd surged forward wedging us into position no feet or elbow room, 20/30 000 ? people united in song & emotion. Wham. this time wasn't so physically painful, there were no scary moments in the mosh pit, the folks were were wedged against were all lovely, apologies to the guy who had my hair in his face all night. I managed to catch a couple of guitar picks from Mike. The most emotional song was ' amongst the waves '  read the words to work out why. Wonderful night. can't wait for the next tour. can't wait to do some more paintings inspired. Love these guys.

Thursday 24th June
6 am start, ferry, long drive home, un-pack and re-pack for next trip. fire training night first aid refresher until late...

adventure part 2 to follow.

To Russia with Love

for those of you who haven't heard, I'm going to Russia, to the International Arts symposium of Elabuga.
information HERE this should get translated for you by google.
This incredible & exciting opportunity is all thanks to Lynn Bennett-MacKenzie an artist who paints gorgeous dream-like work & lives up the coast. Lynn was invited by the symposium organisers and was good enough to share the contact & information. I leapt at the chance as I have always had a thing about Russia. This 'thing' became focuses into a particular obsession in 1997. I was at the time, running my small pottery from home, a cold wee cottage in a remote glen, a single mum with 3 children & beyond the dogs, cats, hens, ducks & a succession of eccentric pottery customers- I had little human company, no money & life was hard. This Christmas a shy but kind local crofter left a gift for us in by the front door. Some meat from his own sheep and the years National geographic magazines. I have been a vegetarian since I was 18 & had raised the children without meat. However in the spirit of this gift, I roast & ate the mutton and read those magazines. One had an article about a tattooed mummy recently excavated from the Pazyryk region, the Altai mountains of Siberia. This woman who had lived 2000 years before me & carried such incredible artwork on her skin became a revelation & inspiration. I can still remember the feeling that rose as I looked at that artwork, the alien meat in my system, the woman's tomb with the horses, her goblet, the carvings, her last meal. It still blows me away. why ? who knows. I'm not the only one, there's been a few strange articles & books often with a 'new age' twist. whatever, it just hit me and that's enough. To go there and see her, see the artifacts, travel the steppes became my dream. A dream that sustained me through many more difficult years. No matter how bad things got, I could retreat to the back of a horse in my head and gallop across the grasslands, into the Taiga forests, peace was to be had there, and hope of better days.

What was the connection between the pictish animal art and the Scythian/ pazyryk art ? how did the migration of peoples happen, how do the time lines connect ? why had it hit me so ? Why did it just feel so right to take these animal designs, re-work them with a pictish/ Celtic twist and take them as my own tattoos?

In 2000 a Czech professor who had traveled the region, and kindly sent me photocopies of images from the tomb, before all this was available on the Internet- he invited me to join an expedition to Altai, 6 weeks on horse back. Of course at that time, there was no way I could leave my children. family first. But I figured where one opportunity existed, others would follow in the future.

This year my last child left home, of course I miss them all badly. However this means that theres nothing to stop me travelling, except money, work commitments. scary !  I thought that it would take a while to save, to plan, to start dipping my toe into the whole new world of the empty nest. Maybe I would do a VSO ? maybe I wouldn't need to travel, maybe contentment could be found at home? Siberia had already served its purpose by inspiring me so long, there was no point rushing impatiently into a new independent of dependants world...however not a couple of months into the empty nest, up to my eyes in art projects, and this opportunity has come up.

Its not Altai, but it is over half way there. The symposium will have a diverse range of international artists, we will be creating a body of work on the subject of "breath of the Epos"  fairy tales, hero myths, and folk lore. Its all mind goggling !  I shall blog the process, the journey, the art the adventure as it happens. cultures, personal identity, gender roles, language, societies attitude to the arts, theres already a lot of stuff kicking in just through speaking to the organisers & other participants. So exciting !

more soon.

Pearl Jam gig last year

Theres another Pearl Jam competition, this time for a comic strip.. heres my hasty job done today. After next webnesday I'll have to do another one, as we're going to see them again in Belfast. Woo Ha!

sunny California

heres a section of a comic sample page for someone for something. Thought I'd try just painting rather than ink & colouring. NEXT job !

Spinechiller guest slot.

As the lovely Ben F Clark is on paternity leave we were very proud to be asked to provide a guest 'Spinechillers' comic strip for Renegade Arts Entertainment. When I saw We I mean of course the lexical mastery of Jim Cambell on letters, the comedy gold provided my Richmond A Clements, and art humbly by yours truely.
 Created by the BFC, "'The Spine Chillers' relates the little known story about the time the worlds greatest writers shared a small boarding house to create some of the most loved horror stories of all time."

Here be a taster, to read the terrifying conclusion ... read here

another local painting

View of Port Na Cridhe ( spelling ? ), from behind Slum bay Island , lochcarron. around a3 acrylic. this has been on the easel a month or so, really need to up productivity, not sure how...stupid short 24 hour day.

The wind rose up...

This has been bursting to get out for ages, the wee girl was climbing the tree out of curiosity but the wind appears to have carried her off. I wish I had animating software still, I wish I had time to let her out to play more often.
I'm pretty dissatisfied with the watercolour finish, I've been getting spoilt doing colours digitally, so much deeper & richer, but still something on paper is nice. This paper didnt seem to like masking fluid etc though which is weird when I really punish it with acrylics to no ill effect.

I wonder what will happen next, I think the wind is gathering strength....

pen & ink practice

haven't drawn in pen & ink for ages, the temptation to get brushes out & speed things up is usually too great. I used to draw mostly detailed scribbly fine pen drawings, then comic work has required a different approach- one which I've never been happy with..so somewhere between the brush & the scribble, the fantasy & the real I'll keep looking until it all comes together & makes sense.

3, 2, 1, ...shhhhh

Gairloch library, summer reading scheme theme is 'Space Hop' so of course we'll need a space rocket in which to read our books. So armed with 2 and a half hours, cardboard boxes, paint, parcel tape and some 4th year pupils we set to work.