Studio News w/e 9 Oct '26

As predicted in last week's Studio News, this week has been one of post-exhibition recovery, driving, unloading and sorting out. The physical aspect of hanging and unhanging an exhibition is almost never spoken about by those involved, and I imagine it's different for us all, but I'm definitely feeling the after-effects of so much lifting. It never fails to remind me that I need to be fitter in the first place, but one's brain will always wonder what on earth one did to cause the most achy of aches.

So, the Waternish studio is replenished with all my paintings and drawings, and laid out ready for next month's Waternish Shopping Weekend. There are two shopping weekends this year: 14-15 November and 12-13 December - so if you're on Skye at all, you'll be most welcome to pop along :)

Wednesday evening saw me brandishing charcoals and pastels at a life drawing session, with Magda as our model. As always, in the spirit of sharing all my drawings, warts and all, here are my drawings, starting with the first two three minute 'blind' drawings (where I only look at the model, not at the paper at all):

Then we progressed to several 8 minute poses:

The final two poses were 15 minutes long, in which I used soft pastels on textured pastel paper:

I haven't posted these anywhere on the website for sale, but if one (or more!) takes your fancy, please feel free to contact me about purchasing them via the contact form.

We had a whole day of power cuts on Thursday, so I took the opportunity to pop and see fellow artists in the following exhibitions (which you can still catch if you hot-foot-it along over the weekend):

It was so delightful to see such an amazing array of works by such wonderful artists, all so different and the exhibitions so wonderfully curated. I always learn something too, it's great to see how others do things.

So, that's me for this week. I hope that yours has been enriching in every sense x

P.S. I'm often asked about the art materials I use in my practice. These are the surfaces and materials I used for this week's life drawing session (some are affiliate links):

Surfaces:

• Derwent Sketch and Store A4 spiral-bound pad - I've had mine for years, but they are widely available, including some I recently found on eBay.
  
• Daler Rowney Murano Pastel paper - click here for the link at Jacksons Art.

Materials:

• Coates charcoal - click here for the link at Jacksons Art.
• Farrel&Gold Black to White Shading Pastels - I got mine from The Works, but you'll find them on eBay sometimes.

I'm an affiliate of Jacksons Art, which means I earn a small amount every time a purchase is made using one of the above links at no additional cost to yourself. Thank you in advance for supporting me this way.