In Spring 2019 I took the plunge and signed up for Nicholas Wilton’s Art2 Life Creative Visionary Programme. The course was intense, packed with challenging tasks and ways of thinking. Like Nicholas himself, and the team of tutors, it was generous and supportive. The participants from around the world in different time zones became a community using a shared language to describe their developing work. At the time the experience was affirmative – revealing why intuitive decisions I had made while work was in progress felt successful, or not. More than a year later I recognise what an advantage it is to have done it, particularly when reviewing my painting myself or getting feedback from tutors on other courses. Meeting other artists who have done CVP means you have a shared language to explain your response to your own and others’ work. To keep this going beyond the course I joined the Academy where the learning continues…

I highly recommend trying out the free Art2 life course which runs once a year prior to CVP to see if it is for you…

While the Orkney print studio remained homeless and dormant I took a few short courses at Orkney College with Diana Leslie and Charles Shearer. Diana introduced groups to the slightly intimidating procedures and skills involved in various methods of print making. I really enjoyed making collographs with Diana exploring the flat isolated images of Inuit birds and animals.

Eventually in 2016 Soulisquoy got its new home in Stromness where I have enjoyed more short courses, talks, and the company of other folk, through dark winter evenings. It makes a nice change from solitary studio work. The methodical and incremental processes involved in making a print can be a therapeutic break from painting.

Before the days of having a studio and when I only had limited time for developing an art practice, I worked through two years of distance learning with Paintbox School of Art. Having a structure and deadlines to follow was good discipline and Jemma Derbyshire’s feedback was invaluable.  

Paintbox School of Art is based at Cockenzie House near Edinburgh where different tutors deliver a selection of courses through the year. I highly recommend having a browse around their website to see what is on offer.

It feels appropriate to start this blog with a post about where things started.

My early memories of Mum’s studio are all about the smell of turps and oil paint and canvases as big as me propped up against the wall. The texture of the globs of impasto paint as it was drying, so tempting to squish. I don’t remember images or pictures of things just the deliciously exciting fields of colour completely filling my vision (perhaps this is why I love Joan Mitchell’s work so much).

My parents were both students at Glasgow School of Art in the 1950s, mum has mostly painted still lives and portraits, and landscapes in her later work.

When I was growing up painting seemed like an unremarkable thing to be doing every day. Lots of people we knew did it too. Many years later it is my turn to paint, and now that I have started I can’t easily stop, put the brush down, leave the studio.