A working week

O, the glamour ...

This week’s work in the studio has been done at a temperature closer to what I’ve come to expect from a Scottish summer. Praise BE. Let’s hear it for cooler evenings, breathable air and a work environment that doesn’t feel like a dystopian, AI-patrolled sweatshop on Betelgeuse.

state of play in the International Shedquarters as of August 2025

Do come in. Let me be your tour guide. Back wall - character sketches for current WIP, right hand wall - assorted diaries, pens, watercolour boxes, charcoals, colour notes in small sketchbooks and a packet of wet wipes which I swear on my guinea pig’s lives, will never be flushed down the great china telephone to join the whitebergs of recent mythology.

I mean - ewwwwwwww. What a revolting species we humans can be. Poor London. Poor River Thames.

Onwards. On my drawing board - assorted brushes, pens and pencils. Inks. My current WIP stretched on a board ( to stop the paper buckling into furrows) and covered with tracing paper to avoid fly or wasp interference. Flies drop poo and wasps flail in wet watercolours and cause havoc across final artwork. Go on, ask me how I know this?

Very lo-tech. Very analogue. My working method is not a million miles from that of many previous generations of artists. Brushes and paint. Paper and charcoal. Made by hand because that’s what my hands are for.

And after a day in the studio, while it’s still summer, with its long arc of daylight, what could be better than a walk ( or a swim) with Beloved and Vaila? The harvest is done ( such as it was, with drought taking its toll) rendering the fields walkable for a brief time until the plough turns them into no-go areas once more. But for now, we can access all areas and gain views that are full of sky and space and gathering birds.

Vaila in a paroxysm of back-scratching bliss. Rowf. Grunt. Arf. Gimme stubble.

The days are measured in routines. Wake, coffee, knit, podcast, either run or lift weights, shower, clean Vesper and Pippin’s luxury guinea pig accommodations and serve their breakfast, feed our ravening sourdough starter, agitate the sloe gin ( in an attempt to marry sugar, sloes and gin) and finally grab my breakfast which, to my eternal discredit and to the detriment of my mental health, I eat at the same time as catching up online with the world and its woes.

I know. I know.

Then my thirty second commute down the garden path. Into International Shedquarters aka studio, and begin day immediately shoot myself in the creative foot by answering email.

I know. Dammit. I know.

In my defence, I would plead that the imaginary-but-detectable-by-my-subconscious clamour arising from work-related admin which demands my attention plus a timely reply is so strident and distracting, that were I to ignore it, it would tug at my metaphorical sleeve and make it almost utterly impossible to give my work the focus it requires. Apologies for the inelegance of that last sentence.

And focus? Pffffffff. I don’t know about you, but mine is shot to hell and back. Post-pandemic, I have to work ten times harder to maintain a thread, hold onto a thought, stick to a plan ( unless I’ve written it down) and retain interest in a written narrative from one paragraph to the next.

Focus? I don’t think so…

You too? Oh, boy. What a time to be alive…

Despite this, or perhaps because of this, moments when I do focus are joyous. Immersion in the gentle world of Dr Purr and her poorly patients is balm for this illustrator’s soul. So, take my paw as I briefly talk you through what I’m doing here.

masked off and subsequent background wash applied

On the left hand side, I’ve begun to apply masking fluid to areas where I do not want the initial watercolour wash to land. Why don’t I just paint round these areas, instead of faffing around with masking fluid? Because watercolour dries quite quickly, and when it does, it can leave a very visible tide mark, so I’d end up with a very uneven background if I wasn’t able to apply the wash (on the right hand side, pale green, in this case) in one lovely wet swoosh¹.

The masking fluid is blue because I add cobalt blue to a mix of Copydex and water so that I can actually see where I’ve applied the mask. I make this masking fluid because I’ve never found one that is as versatile as my own recipe. You’re welcome! Although many brushes have been sacrificed because masking fluid is a pig to remove from the heel ( where the bristles meet the metal of the ferrule).

Masking fluid takes a long time to dry, so I either speed things up with a hairdryer - wait, what? You thought I had a hairdryer next to me because I style my hair while I’m working? Have you seen my hair?

Where did I put my glasses? Come to think of it, where did I put my brain?

Trust me, my graystack is a stranger to brushes, combs, hairdryers or pretty much anything other than some insanely expensive shampoo and conditioner both of which fail utterly in their promise to ‘restore moisture and condition to dried or damaged hair’ but hey. Actually, hay. My hair is hay. But the fiscally ruinous products? They smell gorgeous.

I digress. Focus, Gliori. Back to the studio and the WIP. My hairdryer speeds up the drying of watercolours and masking fluid. It also annoys the heck out of marauding wasps, sends assorted papers into orbit and occasionally blows paint in completely the wrong direction and ruins a finished bit of artwork. How do I know this?

If, however, completion of application of masking fluid coincides with morning coffee or afternoon tea, then I leave the masking fluid to dry in its own time and head indoors. This week, tea breaks have been accompanied by a little recreational sloe-in-gin-and-sugar agitation. Never let it be said that I don’t multitask. Yes, it is a very small quantity of potential sloe gin. I know. It was a very small quantity of sloes, and the sloe bush fought me for every one. At the end of seven days of sloe agitation, I’ll tuck the jar away in a dark cupboard and try to remember to bring it out for winter cheer.

Slainte!

In a way, it’s a small act of faith in the future. I’ve been reading so many gloomy predictions about the health of our biosphere that I needed to counter the darkness with something that implies that there will also be light, and log fires and family and good cheer. A little glass of sloe gin after a chilly winter walk is a cheery thing. It’s what I’ve always called a hook into the future. Casting my line out into the unknown, and trusting that my grappling hook will lodge in something with enough structural integrity to take the weight of my hopes.

Hmmmm. Better get back into the studio. Doctor Purr isn’t going to draw herself into existence. Besides, her patients need her. There’s a chicken with pox, a limping squirrel, heaven knows what’s up with those bees, the kitten is due her MM&R (Miaow, Miaow & Repeat) vaccinations and I think there’s something seriously wrong with that goldfish…

( 140 x 170 mm approx) Ink and watercolour on W&N 100% rag watercolour paper. Once the pale green background was painted, I added Raw Sienna to the mix and overpainted the floor. When dry, I removed all the masking fluid and began to paint all the separate details. With a very small brush.

Handmade & Handwritten (by me)

1. A lovely wet swoosh which asserts a magnetic pull on flying insects of every stripe. Oooh look, a bloody great big lake of cobalt blue. Fancy a thrash? A splash and twitch? A flail and wallow? Eeeeeh, don’t mind if I do. But first, let me just squeeze out the contents of my colon across that lovely pristine white sand dune next to the lake. Aaaah. That’s better.