What I take from the art retreat in Scotland - and a whole lot of photos

At the beginning of this month, I had the great pleasure to spend a week at an art retreat in Scotland. What a fabulous experience it has been! A wonderful group of 8 eager students and an inspiring teacher, gathering together to share their stories and learn from each other.

My spot in the studio - wish I could have taken the light home with me - and the view...

Monday we spent visiting the Heritage Centre - listening to stories from the town's past, and taking lots of photos from the many vintage photos displayed there - and sketching outside around the harbour. On Tuesday to Friday, we got to work in the studio. And what a beautiful place it is! A spacious room with big windows on three sides, overlooking the beautiful bay. This was the view form my desk - it was hard sometimes not to get distracted by it, or rather inspired by the waves and deep colours of the sea, fluffy clouds in the sky and the chimneys on the buildings below.

That view certainly could be very distracting at times... Just look at the colour of the sea!

Gillian, our teacher, usually did drawing or painting demonstrations in the morning, and then spent the rest of the day working with each of us individually. We did portraits and landscapes in charcoal and acrylics, worked with pastels, oil bars, pencils, inks... whatever medium or subject you wanted to work in, try out, deepen your skills or challenge yourself with.

Our dedicated teacher helping one of the students - under  the watchful eyes of the studio manager...

We all had different goals, expectations, aims... I didn't really want to focus on a specific technique or subject, my aim, wish, goal was somewhat more general, less tangible. I have been writing a lot about my art making practice - or absence of it - and something that has come up again and again, was the concept of process. I had come to realise that somehow, I wasn't enjoying the process anymore, but instead was focusing too much on the result. Art making had become something to get over and done with, resulting in mostly quick sketches in my sketchbook while my paints lay untouched for ages. I somehow had ended up feeling that I always needed to produce something that I could show (to whom?), as if I needed some sort of justification for spending time creating art (again, to whom??). Few were the times that I sat down and spent a longer period of time on a drawing. Now of course there is nothing wrong with quick sketches. They are useful and valuable, and if you haven't got much time, always better than nothing. But I wanted to do more than that, but it seemed I just simply wasn't able to. Most of the weekends were spent avoiding going into the studio and ending in frustration about yet another weekend "wasted". That was what I wanted most out of this week - to learn to enjoy the process again. Process, not product.

Another view through one of the windows of the studio

Not filling the page... Leaving space... Letting go... Dare to leave it unfinished... Focusing on a specific area and leave the rest... Not focusing on creating a finished product... Being bold... Dare... Expressive, bold marks... Not too much blending... No expectations... Enjoying the process, the art materials in my hand... Creating for the joy of creating, for myself, most of all...

Here's some of the work I created during the week:

Cliffs, outdoor sketch in A4 sketchbook, pencil

Charcoal portrait on paper, ca. 40x60cm

Charcoal portrait on paper, ca. 40x60 cm

Charcoal and oilbars, drawing based on a drawing in my sketchbook done at the harbour earlier in the week, paper, ca. 40x60cm

Sea shell study in my A4 sketchbook, pencil

Portrait in pencil, in my A4 sketchbook, on a tea stained page

Acrylic monochrome portrait in my A4 sketchbook

It truly was an inspiring week. The quietness and peacefulness of the place, the friendliness of the people, the beautiful views and stunning surrounding, the company. The creativity, inspiration, art making and relaxed atmosphere in the studio.

St John's kirkyard with the remains of the church built in 1513, and the stunning view over the bay

I often went for a little walk in the morning, before class. Spending time on the beach collecting shells, watching a curlew looking for its breakfast in the shallow water, breathing in the cool, fresh air and the peacefulness of my surrounding. 

Early morning on the beach at lowtide - because of its location, it always took quite some time for the sun to reach the town

Early morning reflections

The early bird catches the fish

The nearby village of Crovie. The poles were once used to dry the fishing nets. Today, they are used for laundry.

I really enjoyed spending so much time focusing on just creating, and I worked hard on my goals for this week, trying to do many different things, feeling that whatever I would start there, I would be able to take home with me, and continue. Now I have to take it all into my little studio at home and work on establishing a regular studio routine, and simply just do the work.

So many charming and quirky corners in this little town

The end of October also marks the anniversary of my little blog. What started with learning to use my new DSLR camera and photo editing back in 2010 has led to finding and exploring a whole new, exciting world of techniques, art materials, online workshops and courses, so much different form the local painting class I had been going to for a few years, to practicing and deepening my skills, and continuing to explore and learn. Where will it lead to next? I don't know. But it's nice to have this little space, and to sometimes look back to what I did then, and how my creative journey has developed. And I guess I'll hang around here for a bit longer.

An inspiring art retreat in Scotland, and a relaxing holiday in Dorset

I am back from a 2 1/2 week holiday, which included an inspiring one week art retreat in Scotland, a relaxing 10 days at the opposite end of the isle, in Dorset, and my so far worst journey ever. 

So to get the moaning out of the way, first: another unpleasant "joy of travelling by air" episode, the worst ever so far, even worse than the "June episode". After an inspiring week in Scotland, I was to fly back from Aberdeen to London on Saturday noon, and from there travel on to Dorset. I had booked my flight and my train ticket, and was looking forward to arrive in Dorchester by 8pm. At the check-in counter, I was then informed that the plane was full, and that since I hadn't checked in online earlier, there was no seat available anymore. What??? What about having booked my seat for that particular flight a good 4 months earlier, and having paid about £150 for that leg of the journey alone?? Didn't that count for something? Apparently not. Unfortunately, it seems that it is common practice for airlines to overbook flights and count on a quite substantial number of people not showing up. As it so happened, it was holiday season for many people, and pretty much every one showed up. As it turned out, the whole disaster had already started the night before. From Friday evening to Saturday afternoon, all flights were overbooked. The practice adopted by British Airways in this a case was come first serve first, and dozens of people, who, like me, hadn't been able to check in online the day before, found themselves stuck and unable to travel as planned. Long queues of people, their nerves frayed to pieces, stressed out, shaking, close to tears, their holidays ruined by this whole experience, gobsmacked that something like this could happen with what they had believed to be a "proper, decent" airline... At least I only had a train to catch in London, but there were many people with connecting flights on to the States, to Australia and other far away destinations, who didn't know if and when they were able to get to their destinations.

I was eventually booked to a much later flight than my original midday flight, spending 6 hours at Aberdeen airport. Wen I finally arrived in Heathrow, a member of staff at the bus information insisted that it was not possible to buy a combined coach and train ticket, and then, after I told him that I had indeed bought said combined ticket many times before at the central bus station in terminal 1-3, suggested I might want to go there to get one. I did not, as the central bus station is a good 5-10 minutes bus or train journey from terminal 5, where I was. Eventually I found my way to the National Express office at the very end of the terminal, where I obtained my combined bus and train ticket, pretty exactly at the time when the bus was due at 7.50. So another hour of hanging around and waiting at an airport. When I finally got on the 9pm train at Woking, it was packed with people of all ages, many of whom, it seemed, coming from a football match. It was not really a very pleasant journey after an already utterly unpleasant day of travel, and after changing coaches twice, I eventually found a seat where I felt comfortable enough for the remaining 40 minutes. I have never been gladder to arrive at Dorchester. At about 11.30pm, I finally dropped by bags ton the floor at Ns, utterly exhausted after a good 15 hours of travel. What a day.
This was my first time flying with British Airways, and most probably my last. I have absolutely no intention of every using them again, if I can help it. I am well aware that they are not the only airline that overbooks flights, but there are other ways of dealing with such a situation.
Thankfully, the other three journeys all went smooth, including my flight back from London City Airport on Tuesday evening, which was a pleasant surprise. Seriously, I cannot remember the last time my flight back from London to Zürich wasn't delayed or even cancelled, such a rare occurrence this seems to have become be these days...

But on to more pleasant things now. Apart from that one day, I spent a fantastic, inspiring holiday. The first week was an art retreat in the northeast of Scotland with Gillian Lee Smith, in the charming coastal village of Gardenstown. Surrounded by stunning views of the cliffs and the sea, and with no mobile phone signal and limited internet access, it was the perfect place to spend a week of making art. I had been a little apprehensive about spending an entire week with more or less complete strangers - and sharing a cottage with some of them - but my fears were soon gone. It was a fantastic group of women, and it was a great pleasure to spend so much time with them, learning their stories and getting to know them. We arrived on Saturday evening, and had Sunday off to explore the surrounding and rest. As happens so often when I travel, the sky was blue and the temperatures comparatively mild. Indeed, it was sun and blue sky, and not even the tiniest drop of rain, the entire week I spent there. There are some lovely walks either side of Gardenstown, one to the old St John's Kirkyard, with fantastic views over the bay, the other to the old fishing village of Crovie.

On Monday, we started working. Drawing, with charcoal and pencil, landscapes, portraits, oil bars, painting, acrylics, pastels... I had two sketchbooks I worked in, along with the bigger sheets of paper, an A5 Moleskine and an A4 Seawhite travel journal. Here's a few pages from my Moleskine, that I managed to scan so far. The A4 is too big for my scanner, and I haven't yet any good pictures of the bigger works I've done. On Monday, we went outside to he harbour for some sketching.

There was a jar full of sea shells and other treasures from nature and the sea in the studio, and I did a quick sketch of this lobster or crab claw. 

Spending a little time mixing colours. I liked those mixing palettes they had in the studio. A good mixing palette is something that's been on my to get list for ages.

I'll write some more about my week in Scotland soon, and I've got some more photos to share from my 10 days in Dorset too - we spent another fabulous day  at one of my favourite places there, Brownsea Island - but I've only been home 3 days now, and straight back to work, and I still have many photos, journal pages and thoughts to go and sort through.

Some WIP art journal pages, photos from Stockholm, and I'm packing my suitcase again

It has been yet another unproductive weekend spent mostly on the sofa, mostly thanks to a colonoscopy on Monday. Have you ever had a colonoscopy? Most people who have never had one, find the procedure itself the most worrying part, while actually, it is the least disagreeable part. At least if you have a doctor like mine - you get some muscle relaxing stuff put into your vein and happily doze through the whole thing. By far the worst part is that disgusting stuff you have to drink to completely clean your bowels beforehand. I've had several colonoscopies, and many more to come, and having to get those 2 litres down is always the thing I dread most. It takes me ages, and it just makes you feel sick and miserable and exhausted.

So I didn't get much drawing or painting done, this week, but I have a couple of journal pages that I started. The first one is in my Leuchtturm journal, and it turned into a bit of a colour sampling page, as I tried to decide which red to pack for my next adventure (more about that at the end of the post) - Cadminum Red Light (top) or Cadmium Red Medium (bottom). I decided for the latter.

I have quite a few stamps and stencils, but I hardly ever use them these days, and I try not to buy an new ones. I do like their designs, but in my art, I just prefer to use my own designs, instead of someone else's. But I went to a big craft shop in the centre of Stockholm, and I just couldn't resist buying some clear stamps with sentiments in Swedish.

These tow pages are in my Moleskine journal, and I actually started them in Stockholm, in my hotel room, using some of the pieces we had used and created during the workshop.

I also got some more photos from Stockholm and Vaxholm edited.The beautiful old town, Gamla Stan, with its warm coloured old and wonky buildings.

It was especially magical in the beautiful evening light.

Norrhamnen in the early morning light. If you ever go to Vaxholm, make sure to visit this little bay, just a few minute's walk from Söderhamnplan (where the bus and boats arrive), and to stop at the Hembygdsgårds Café. It's a charming place, and they have amazing food and cakes at the café! Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go there this time, I only had half an hour for a quick visit before the workshop started, but next time I'm there, I will!

On my last day, I met up with a friend I only knew from Facebook. We went to Rosendal, a charming garden with a café on Djurgården. Social media are great to find and connect with like minded people all over the world, but it still just isn't quite the same as actually having a coffee or lunch together and talking to each other in person. It was so lovely to meet her, and we had a great time, and it was the perfect thing to do before having to go to the airport and travel back home later that day.

Tomorrow, I'm off to another adventure. I've always wanted to go to an art retreat, but I was always far too late and they were sold out long before I even knew they existed. But a year ago, I was finally early enough, and now I'm going to spend next week drawing and painting in Scotland. I would have preferred for my two art adventures abroad to not be quite so close together. In my mind, I'm still in Stockholm, and still full of all the inspiration, which I can't wait to let flow into my art journal. But of course I'm also very much looking forward to next week, albeit feeling slightly apprehensive about spending an entire week with absolute strangers, in shared accommodation... But I'm sure it'll be a blast. And after Scotland, I'll travel to the other end of the isle, to lovely Dorset, to spend a relaxing week with N. I am really looking forward to that. Relaxing, resting, doing nothing, recharging. That's just what I need right now.

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Back to every day life and more daily teacups

After all the great inspiration and new ideas and technique from the workshop in Vaxholm, of course I just wanted to take my art journal out and start playing. But my energy level is  extremely low at the moment, and I needed the weekend to just relax and catch up on sleep after my late flight home last Tuesday and straight back to work on Wednesday. I am slowly learning to listen to my body, and to not feel guilty for not doing anything when I need to slow down and rest. But although I didn't get as busy as I would have wanted to, I still got a bit of something done.

I did this little sketch while in Stockholm, and finally added the lettering. There are loads of sausage huts and stalls every where around town, and even in the tiniest kiosk, you can usually get a grilled or cooked sausage. For me, when in Stockholm, a grilled sausage is a must. As are cinnamon rolls, mint krokant chocolate, and bags and bags of sour sweets...

I also finished this sketch that I did earlier this month, in a new sketchbook that I found in a local art shop. It's by AMI Art Material International, a brand that I didn't know, and it has 180g/m2 watercolour paper. The paper is smooth on one side, and has a bit of a strange texture on the other, sort of lines ridges. But it's bound so that you always have the same surface on both pages, left and right, so that you can have a double spread with the same texture. It is landscape format, as usual, but with approx. 20,5x14,5 cm slightly wider than the Moleskine watercolour journals, which I always find just a bit too narrow.

Another little sketch I did while in Stockholm. There's a shop called Pen Store in Södermalm, and of course I had to go and check it out. Pens, pens, pens, and some gorgeous notebooks too. Wonderful. Of course I had to by some pens... and sketch them...

I'm also back to my (almost) daily tea cup drawing. I'm trying a new approach to drawing them, and I think I might finally get the hang of it eventually.

It's not just all tea cups in my sketchbook, though. I just loved the pattern and colours of this pear. I have one box of all kinds of pens and some coloured pencils just in browns and greens, because I love those colours so much for drawing.

I finally got one of those blue Caran D'Ache photo pencils, and tried it out in a little abstract sketch in my Moleskine. I was a bit disappointed that the blue was still visible after scanning or taking photos, but of course, as usual, I hadn't read the instructions properly. It doesn't shop up when you scan or photocopy it in black and white only. Which is rather nice, actually. Because it means you can have it both ways. Scan it in colour to see it, and in black and white to make it disappear. And it's a nice blue anyway.

I didn't do much art journaling, but I have started a new art journal. I'm using a bright pink Leuchtturm 1917 sketchbook for this, which is slightly wider than a Moleskine. I've only got as far as a first couple of layers of background on the first two pages, but hopefully, I'll have more to show next week. As well as some more photos from Stockholm. I just didn't get round to any editing this week.