Week of August 2nd and Welcome to my table. Here’s what’s scattered, stacked, splashed and inspiring me this week…
On the Table This Week
An old atlas found second-hand sparked a flurry of ideas — I’ve been working on travel and mapping themes for a new project with a company exploring creative days out. Something about the worn pages and crinkled coastlines reminded me how much I love a paper trail — especially one that loops through colour, memory, and adventure.
There’s also a zine on the table from a recent workshop at The Judges’ Lodgings Museum here in Lancaster. It was a brilliant day led by artist Sarah-Joy Ford, and educator/researcher Hannah Singleton, filled with play, community, and one of the best warm-ups I’ve ever tried: drawing without lifting your hand off the paper. I came straight home and filled pages with tulips and tangled paths, mixing line drawings with watercolour washes and map cutouts. The work is messy, joyful — and definitely going somewhere. There are two more workshops in August – You can sign up here.
Bits I’m Loving
- Warm-up prompts: continuous line drawing + “draw how it feels, not how it looks”
- Material: Painting and collaging with different papers – thick map pages hold watercolour better than expected
- Palette: dusky pinks, rusts, leafy greens, Atlantic blue
Studio Moments
- I was sitting at the table during a creative session, flipping through an atlas, when someone asked if I’d ever turned maps into pattern repeats. Now I can’t stop thinking about it — and that’s the magic of creative thinking with others, which is at the heart of what I do as a mentor: helping ideas grow and take shape through connection and collaboration
- My kids joined in with the drawing warm-up — one of them made a beautiful abstract bird just trying not to lift their pencil. Studio magic.
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