Welcome to April, folks! I may be typing this with a hot water bottle and three pairs of socks but I deem winter officially over. Can somebody inform the weather, please? In the mean time I suppose I can catch you up with my artistic activities from March.

Let's start with this month's minis, which you can see better in gallery format by clicking on the image below. These are still a nice routine to have, messing around on little experiments between larger pieces.

On that larger scale I started a new project in which I work over previous landscapes, leaving the edges exposed but transforming the centre. I'm very pleased with these and will be continuing this process on other pieces. Click the image to go get a better look:

My biggest push in March was to complete the last three of my four 'Threadbare' paintings. This was a really interesting process and I'm feeling confident to make bigger and more complex paintings in the future...but it feels a little creepy that I now have four big, strange self portraits floating around the house! Anyway, you can click the image below to enjoy the full Threadbare gallery.

I also kept up my new routine of trying new ways of doing portraiture, these two being on A3 paper primed with gesso. I worked over the top in watercolour, markers and coloured pencil and I think they have a lovely moody atmosphere. It feels like they're panels from a graphic novel, maybe? Click the image to see them in the A3 portrait gallery.

In the realm of sketchbooks I cracked on in my A4 Beechmore. Can you see a little bit more Spring optimism creeping in to it? The coloured pencil pages are actually done over a layer of white gesso, it helps the colour go down without me busting my already funky wrist. Click the composite below to see the whole sketchbook so far.

I kept up some still life in my A3 mixed media sketchbook, among other things. I love working mixed media over a bright acrylic background, just look at how that watercolour pools on the water resistant surface! Click the image below to go go to this sketchbook's dedicated gallery.

Speaking of watercolour, I also happily continued with my square sofa sketchbook. I'm building up quite a little collection of lovely motifs. Once this sketchbook is finished I intend to combine these leaves, shells, mushrooms and stones on a new watercolour painting series. The composite below will take you to this sketchbook in progress.

Galashiels Studio Club evenings wrapped up for the 2023/24 session with a really helpful critique session with local artist Andrew Legerwood-Walker. Next on the agenda is planning for our June exhibition and the 2024/24 syllabus.

I'm also part of a group of local creatives that has just set up an exhibition and workshop space in Galashiels. It's the Little Art Hub and here's the Facebook and Instagram. And here's a couple of shots of work that I put up for the launch exhibition:

So that's March wrapped up and I'll be back at the end of April to fill you in on all the very cool and awesome work that I'm SURE I'll be doing. I'll link it below when it's up, have a great month!