With two shows on the horizon I’m busy putting in the hours and the studio is filling up nicely with work. I have four charcoal drawings going to Open Glass Doors this weekend and I’m looking forward to seeing the whole exhibition at the end of September.
Then my solo show ‘Damaged woods’ opens at Art’s Complex on 5th October, which will feature more charcoals, pastels and this really big drawing I completed today. I first discovered this tree in January of this year, very shortly after it had lost one of its limbs in high winds. It was so striking that I’ve been back four times to draw and photograph it – I think there’s a whole series here.
As the Art’s Complex Summer Show comes to an end, so the work begins to get ready for my second solo show coming up in October. Entitled ‘Damaged woods’, the exhibition will explore the way trees respond to damage and disease and how their forms record it in three dimensions. All the research and field studies were done in the early spring and now it’s time to face the blank sheets and start drawing!
The inaugural Art’s Complex Summer Show opened in style last Friday, with lots of interest and an exciting mix of resident artists’ work. I have six new charcoals in the show, which are shown off beautifully in the recently refurbished Gallery 1 and there’s also a wall drawing which curator Sophia Lindsay Burns encouraged out of me! The 
The summer has slipped by mostly under a raincloud but it’s nearly time for the much anticipated 
It’s been impossible to get a day dry enough to draw outside for longer than five minutes but so much rain has a wonderful effect on the bark of some beech trees. They become very dark grey and shiny, looking almost like well moisturised hide like this one at Beecraigs, West Lothian. I’ve drawn this one one before but never seen it like this, so I’m hoping for rain on my next trip too!