Back in the city

Materials and places and how they influence each other

A drawing I did last week on a warm July afternoon in downtown Edinburgh

Here I am, back in a city. Edinburgh in fact. Outrageously beautiful Edinburgh.

I am mostly thrilled to be here. Dave and I visited once, for three days, lots of years ago, and both thought one day we might live here. And now, here we are, many years later, trying to find a bit of a home amongst this very foreign and appealing stony city.

It’s strange how it works though. When I returned to drawing after about 20 years hiatus in 2014, I was living in a city - the incredible city of Ulaanbaatar, in Mongolia. I was scared to draw much of life there, and my skills were poor - it was the start of my drawing journey. You can see below the first image I was brave enough to draw out in public… and it was actually when we escaped the city and were on a trip for Dave’s work out in the countryside where we helped build a Ger (that became our home) and I had very few people around, that I got my courage up and drew the world around me. Don’t look too closely at the drawing - one, because it is quite awful, and two, because they are actually in the process of making dinner which is definitely not for everyone (including me).

Some photos I took and a drawing I did in 2014 when we were living in Mongolia. You can see such a change over time in style and skill (at least I hope so!).

This drawing, I think, also sums up what I began comfortable drawing when I first began after my hiatus. People and the built world. I loved line. And in fact for the first five years - from 2014 until about 2019, I only really drew with a single pen and a tiny mint tin of watercolours.

I sometimes feel a little shame when I look back and see how limited my skills and materials were. But I think it was actually in keeping it this limited that I learned to properly see and draw. I wasn’t distracted by deciding what to use, and I could also keep everything in my handbag so could draw all the time.

I gradually improved my line and my colour and made some pieces that I still actually really love. The drawing below I made in temperatures about 10 below zero in beautiful snow covered Tallinn when we spent a month working from there in January 2019. I adored all the lovely lines of the beautiful old town and worked out a way to add ghostly people walking through on top of the much more solid buildings.

One of my favourite pen, ink and watercolour drawings from beautiful Tallinn, January 2019

Then things changed. Firstly, I had been living in the countryside in Australia in a small town with architecture that didn’t inspire. It was a town filled with artists, but they were all inspired by the Australian landscape and for some reason I was not. I tried drawing the eucalypts and dry scrubby bushland that I loved to be in, but somehow never wanted to draw or paint. So I was struggling to find inspiration in the world around me. I drew mostly only interiors - inside beautiful cafes and theatres - all the places where lines and people were the main thing. Secondly, I was challenged by some people to stop drawing lines and colouring them in. This was confronting at first as I quite liked my lines and definitely liked colouring them in, but it was a good challenge and I think they were right. And, I also think my love of line was stopping my ability to happily draw the countryside - the softer more organic parts of the world where line is much less present.

Just before the pandemic began Dave and I made the big move from Australia to the UK where we landed in a little village just on the edge of Cambridge. Here, I found this wonderful happy place - I was back in a world where buildings and people that inspired were everywhere. But then covid hit and I wasn’t able to get into town amongst the buildings and people and I was left with the english countryside.

I think it was here, in lockdown, that I really left my beloved pen and line behind, and began to work out how to enjoy drawing trees, how to use shape and colour before thinking about line and developed a whole new way of working.

Threw away my pen (or ‘lost’ it) and started to try to work out how to paint first and then use pencil to add more subtle line on top…

I started loving playing with paint despite having always believed I could never be a painter. And I started loving colour. Then we moved to an even more rural place - one of the most magical places on the planet I think - a beautiful village right on the sea in Cornwall. Here, I learned to fall in love with drawing the sea and also drawing trees. I have always loved trees (I did a PhD on trees) but have never liked to draw them. But now, I actually think it was just that my pen and way of using it didn’t suit them. I remember one afternoon in our little village throwing a whole heap of different green inks down into my sketchbook, with a freedom I hadn’t really had before and making this:

Breakthrough! I worked out a way to draw trees that I liked. Now, I mostly want to draw trees.

And from then on I have looked not for the lines and the buildings, but for the beautiful trees.

So here we are full circle. I am back in the city - have landed in Edinburgh, where I have long hoped to live, amongst these stunning stone buildings and staircases and instead I am looking for the trees. I keep heading out to draw and wanting, not to draw these layers of people and wonderful architecture, but layers of greenery and plants and foliage.

So, I feel like now, back in the city, I have to learn again how to celebrate the buildings and the people and let go a little of the trees. I can keep looking for them… and only draw Edinburgh when I can frame it through the green. Or I can work out a way to use these new skills and ways of working to find a way of working with the same freedom to depict the beautiful stone architecture. I think when I started drawing, my limited materials influenced the places I liked to draw. And then, I think I let the places influence my materials and I learned so much. But now, again, I think my love of my green inks and paints and markers is meaning I am limiting my ability to draw this beautiful city. It’s time, I think, to work out how to again let this new, stone-filled ancient place influence my materials. I wonder where things will go from here.

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Thank you for reading! This is my first foray for ages back into writing… and I would love to know what you would like to hear about from me! Do let me know in the comments below :)