art

Lochans and Carved Faces

| Rebecca Gibson

Monday was the perfect combination of winter chill and dazzling sunshine, so I decided to take my mum and the dog to two of my favourite wild spots down in the Cairngorms.

Looking like a blue pawprint when seen on a map, the Uath (pronounced ‘wah’) Lochans are four small pools bordered by pines. Their surfaces are sometimes wobbled by goldeneye ducks but they mostly stay mirror-steady, reflecting the trunks standing around them.

There are two short waymarked trails that can easily be combined into a meandering loop. One threads between the lochans, following compacted earth paths and sections of boardwalk over boggy pools. The other climbs a brief incline, offering an eagle’s eye view over carpets of pine and further into the mountains.

Less than three miles north, the Frank Bruce Sculpture Collection is a series of artworks that have been carved into wood and stone, destined to eventually rot and fade back into their woodland surroundings.

Because the carvings are natural, they have excellent camouflage and some are trickier to find than others. It takes a while for your eyes to adjust before you can pick out sculpted faces and hands among all the other trunks. A needle in haystack situation!

It’s possible to walk a small loop here too, following a stretch of the River Feshie as it tumbles over pale shingle. The river sparkled and the trees beyond shimmered in the winter sunlight.

Although the sun was boiling as it streamed through the car windows, outside was a different matter, so once the chill began to seep through our clothes we returned home. The winter light persisted until the very last moment and I wandered up to the headland to watch the sun set. It’s not often I spend a day without looking at screens, so it was a welcome treat.

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Winter Sun

Picking up a Paintbrush

| Rebecca Gibson

Painting always takes a backseat for me. Writing and photography take up all of my creative time and energy, and as a result I barely ever get round to painting even though I love it. The second I actually set out my equipment and get started, I spend hours doing it!

The other obstacle is the fact I’m a raging perfectionist. I aspire for photorealism on every piece and it just doesn’t happen. What I should be more concerned with is that my worrying is stopping me from doing what I love.

So, determined not to get bogged down by perfection, I painted a few sketches with my usual combination of watercolour and fineliner pens recently. Sure they’re a little rough round the edges but isn’t creative expression what art is all about? If we could all paint a bird to look like a photo, every piece of artwork would look identical. Naturally this is just me making an excuse for my lack of technical skill, but joking aside I think art should be about having fun no matter what the end result looks like. And everyone knows practice makes perfect.

Nature Journaling Week

| Rebecca Gibson
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It’s Nature Journaling Week! I’ve taken on the challenge of writing and illustrating a page in my nature journal every day from the 1st – 7th June. I always miss the international weeks and days but luckily I caught this one the night before it began. I’ve kept a nature journal for about nine months now, but recently it’s become more difficult to make time for it with my masters and other work commitments. So, Nature Journaling Week couldn’t have come at a better time for me.

As well as daily prompts, the week includes workshops and virtual events with nature journaling teacher and author John Muir Laws and author and artist Tim Pond. There is a huge amount of information on the website, so if you have a flair for journaling or even just a curious interest then get involved!

For day one I visited my local forest, which has always been a great place to relax and reflect. As well as birds and butterflies, there are furrier creatures to be spotted too. I’ve glimpsed a roe deer dashing through the gorse on previous visits, but I had a particularly special sighting yesterday.

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ROSEISLE FOREST

What a brilliant morning. Before we’d even entered the forest I saw a juvenile robin, house martins sweeping up under rooftops to reach their nests and a female blackbird with a mouthful of food. When we left the road behind, the natural soundscape took over: the whispering “whoo whoo” of wind beneath a crow’s beating wings, the scuds and crunches of pinecones underfoot and a distant chiffchaff singing its name.

The branches of young conifers were like apple green hairbrushes, still soft with youth, while the thick knots of spiderwebs twisted around twig tips resembled silver microphones. Elsewhere, the fine gossamer hung between papery trunks shone golden in the spots of light seeping through the canopy. A dunnock was singing – its pink mouth open wide. Fluttering leaf-like was a speckled wood butterfly, basking on the dry earth with lazy blinks of its wings.

We looped back towards home, relaxed and at peace after a little forest therapy. Just as I glimpsed the first row of houses, a branch rustled overhead and revealed the tiny body of a red squirrel! It stared at me for a moment before taking off over the treetops, lost in greenness and silence.

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It was so lovely to take time out to concentrate on creative writing and art. It’s easy to get distracted with pressing deadlines, but it’s also important to break that routine and reset yourself. I returned from my walk more relaxed, (thrilled after the squirrel sighting!) and ready to begin the day. I hope Nature Journaling Week will inspire more people to not only visit wild places (ensuring appropriate social distancing of course) but also to record their interactions in a journal to reflect on them for years to come.

A Flash of Dorsal Fin

| Rebecca Gibson

Jasmine brought me the ball again and shook her fur just as I stooped to pick it up, sending a spray of sand up into my face. Since I moved to the coast, sand is now a constant in my life. Every dip in a pocket reveals a new gathering of damp and slightly fishy dust, stuck like glue to every surface. I hurled the ball and Jas pelted after it, her pitter pattering paws the only sound in an otherwise silent evening. I had the beach to myself most days anyway, but recently it had become even more unusual to see another dog walker or jogger. Jas was none the wiser and was soon back at my feet again, tossing the ball up where it splatted against my shin and left a patch of sandy residue.

The evening was gloomy. Clouds were gathering and the little sunlight left was concealed behind the point at the end of the peninsula. My wet dog was getting curlier by the minute so I gave her a treat and put her back on the lead. She picked up her ball and carried it lovingly, ears lolling either side of a sand-clogged beard. I headed up the hill towards the pink splodge that hinted at an impressive sunset and scanned the shore. Herring gulls were gathered together on the rocks while a pair of red breasted mergansers bobbed in the shallows. A cormorant shot over the surface. The usuals.

I struggled with the lead, my soggy gloves and a poo bag as I rummaged in my pocket. The vivid sunset paled instantly as my phone decided not to pick up any of the oranges or pinks that I was seeing. Scowling at the phone and the dog as she began to dig a hole at my feet, I contented myself with just watching the sunset, but a black scratch on the water quickly made my stomach flip over. I lifted the binoculars up and yes! A dorsal fin! I could barely believe what I was seeing. For the last month I’d believed that dolphins were mythical creatures and I was more likely to see Nessie. But no, there were multiple bottlenose dolphins out there. As Jas continued to tug at a particularly stubborn tussock, I buzzed with excitement as the dolphins surfaced again. I counted four fins, although it was difficult when they didn’t all appear together. They were heading around the point so I followed them, hurrying along the thin trail that wound around the sheer edge of the hill. If I tripped the wrong way I’d plummet into the sea but I wasn’t too aware of that at the time. Jas followed reluctantly, no doubt wondering what the fuss was about.

Again! Definitely four fins, dark against the pale water. They were out of the sunset now and trickier to spot. Without the bright light, they were swallowed up by the mist already obscuring most of the horizon. They came up again but I could barely make them out. I began to feel rain, the sort of rain you don’t notice until you’re drenched, so I walked back to the house, scanning sideways the whole time, but my dolphins were gone for now.

Onwards and Upwards

| Rebecca Gibson

My last post was all about reflecting on 2019. This one is about looking forward to 2020. It’s easy to write a long list of New Year’s resolutions but a little trickier to stick to them. So, this year I want to develop habits that I already have, starting with my art.

Last year saw a surge in my artistic activity. I can’t remember quite how it happened, but I know that starting a nature journal certainly helped. As well as nature I use my journal for tickets, feathers, pretty page borders and scribblings. One of my new evening past times is sketching whilst curled up on the sofa in my favourite spot. It’s a one-stop shop for all my creative energy and seeing the book get fatter only encourages me more. The journal is particularly useful for making notes on walks, although I still need to kick the bad habit of wanting every page to look Pinterest-worthy. I make title pages each month and have bought a dinky old-fashioned library stamp to date each entry. It’s by no means perfect, but so far it has proven to be a useful tool for getting me drawing and painting again.

Linked to this is a new art challenge: Inktober 52. The original version was a drawing prompt for every day in October, but that sadly didn’t quite happen. Luckily for me there’s a weekly version starting in 2020 – 52 new drawings that I can add to my portfolio. The first prompt was FLIGHT so I drew a dragon with my new Faber-Castell pens I got for Christmas. I really want to stick to Inktober 52 and I can’t wait to get next week’s prompt!

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Alas, where there’s play there has to be work. I’m feeling really optimistic about my writing moving forwards. The MA has already provided a structure for developing my work and, perhaps most importantly, trying to get paid for it. The self-led trip in April will be an important test of my ability to pitch to publications. Today I spent many hours poring over Scottish magazines and I was pleased to see that a lot of my ideas hadn’t been featured. There’s still a lot to organise, but I’m so excited to see what happens over the next few months.

Another thing I would like to do this year is establish a better work structure. I have quite a few different types of work including MA assignments, freelance pieces and personal writing, and my long to-do list was getting a little daunting. This year I’d like to try assigning a certain type of work to a specific day, so on that day I only have a few tasks to concern myself with. Blocking out time will hopefully mean I get jobs done more efficiently and make time for the things that get neglected, such as my fiction projects.

Something I certainly need to make more time for in 2020 is exercise. After a fairly consistent feast of mince pies, Yorkshire puddings and apple sauce over Christmas and the uninspiring rainy weather, my fitness has undoubtedly suffered. What’s more insulting is that my monthly gym membership still zips out of my account even when I don’t actually go… Although the idea of jogging makes me want to crawl into a ball and play possum, I want to embrace power walking and forest walking more this year.

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Buzzard gliding over Anagach Woods, Grantown-on-Spey

Lots to be getting on with! I’ve seen a few people choosing one word to summarise the coming year so I’ve decided that mine will be “improve”. It may sound simple but it’s what I want to do every year, whether that’s learn something new, develop a skill I’ve already been working on or change something for the better. Basically any small victory that brings me closer to my goals. I hope 2020 will bring lots of improvements!

 

Nature Journal

| Rebecca Gibson

I can’t believe I’m already two assignments into my master’s degree. Both have been based around the theme of “Writing in the Field” – writing outside as opposed to a typical office environment. This was really useful for me, as up until now I’ve mostly written brief notes outside and then typed them up later at my desk. While this worked for jogging memories, it occurred to me that I was losing out on a lot of detail this way. Photos reminded me of things I saw, but I was glossing over other sensations such as smells, sounds and textures. By paying attention to these senses I found I could create a fuller, more immersive piece of writing that really put the reader in the field with me.

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Inspiration for a fantasy fiction piece

For my first assignment I decided to start a nature journal that I planned to take with me whenever I was out in nature. This would be the basis for my essay in the first assignment. During my research I discovered that many writers use journals to enhance their writing experience. Charles Darwin kept perhaps the most well known example during his voyages on H.M.S Beagle but there are numerous others. Author and artist John Muir Laws said that “journaling will slow you down and make you stop and look.” American author and scientist Aldo Leopold’s nature journals were so significant that the resulting essays became valuable contributions to the field of phenology – the study of seasonal natural phenomena. I also found several studies indicating that being outside is beneficial to creativity, so it made sense to do more writing outdoors!

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An illustration for a piece of scientific writing about roe deer

I found that my nature journal not only benefitted my writing but also enabled me to concentrate more on my art. I was keen to make the pages pretty and yearned to have a journal that would be cool enough for Pinterest. I’ve always loved drawing and painting but it’s often taken a back seat. My usual excuse is that I have no time, but over the past few weeks I’ve started to create quite a large body of work just by snatching a few minutes here and there to make a sketch. I bought a travel watercolour palette with a brush containing its own water which has been a lifesaver. Now I can pop my paints in my bag and take them anywhere, and I’ve really got on well with it so far. I deliberately bought a journal with a ring binder, so I can remove and insert the hole punched pages wherever I want them. A lot of my conventional notebooks have failed so I think having the freedom to go back and add pages in later has helped to keep the creative flow going.

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Burghead Harbour, the scene of a reflective piece about night walks

Writing and illustration go well together, so I decided to create a small drawing or painting for each piece in my second assignment – a portfolio of nature and travel writing from the field. I’ve loved setting art projects for myself again, which I haven’t done since school. Not only does it bring some variety to my writing, but it’s enhanced my observational skills by forcing me to note the fine details of my environment. I’m really looking forward to seeing how my nature journal progresses and I hope I can maintain it until the end of my course and beyond!

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A worm’s eye view to illustrate a sci-fi fiction piece

Who Am I?

| Rebecca Gibson

I was so excited for last weekend’s A Focus On Nature’s “Now For Nature” conference at London’s Natural History Museum. Specifically aimed at 16-30 year olds, AFON is all about young people in conservation. Wildlife isn’t often popular among young people, so having the chance to meet like-minded individuals my age was a brilliant opportunity. From talks by big names such as Chris Packham and Stephen Moss to productive workshops from successful conservationists, the event was an inspiring weekend full of Conservation Optimism.

I was particularly pleased to meet Tiffany Francis. At just 27 years old, she has three books published, which is an incredible and inspiring achievement. Her big break came from AFON itself, where she wrote an article on wild foraging that was picked up by Bloomsbury and turned into a book. Tiffany went on to write her second about British goats – taken from her time working on a farm – and her latest book Dark Skies, released only last week, is about our relationship with darkness and wildlife at night. As well as writing the book, Tiffany also produced all the illustrations including the book’s front cover.

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Speaking to Tiffany afterwards, I discovered how approachable and open she was. We chatted like we knew each other; in fact, when I gave her business card she said, “Oh you’re rebeccaonthewing!” which was a fantastic feeling.

I told her about the trouble I’ve had finding a specific identity in my writing and establishing a niche without cutting myself off from other readers. I also suffer from overthinking, which ends up being a real obstacle that stops me from writing. One thing I’d like to try is free writing, where I just sit and let thoughts pour onto the page. I’m hoping that not only will this lessen the inhibiting effect of overthinking but it will also generate new ideas. I’ve learnt that getting hung up about writing means you don’t write.

Tiffany’s reply was that I should just write what I enjoy writing. For a while she had conflicting ideas about her own professional identity. Was she a writer or illustrator? At the time she felt she couldn’t be both, which made filling out social media bios a real trial.

She later realised that she didn’t have to label herself as anything. She was a “creative”, which could mean writer, artist, public speaker and a whole range of other things. I’ve experienced this too, deliberating over “writer” and “photographer”, and although they’re not my greatest strengths, I also love painting and drawing which ties in nicely with nature writing as Tiffany has proven. I’ve come to realise that all these skills come together to form my identity as a “creative” and it is constantly changing and adapting. It doesn’t need to fit in a bio box. Tiffany said all that’s important about your work is it pays the bills, makes you happy and makes a difference. While the first may take a while, I can continue with the second and strive for the third.

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365 Days Wild

| Rebecca Gibson

Lucy McRobert lost her mother to cancer when she was sixteen. Although it wasn’t as easily recognised at the time, she feels she suffered from some form of anxiety or depression, which she unconsciously suppressed until university when she rediscovered her love of nature. It was this passion for wildlife that helped her overcome the grief she had kept concealed for all those years.

It’s been proven that spending time outside and connecting with nature improves mental state and wellbeing. “Just like eating a balanced diet and exercising helps our minds and bodies”, Lucy writes, “Wildlife and wild places help us to get active, encourage us to be more social, improve our confidence and creativity and help us cope with stressful life events”. It’s true that nature is free therapy, but it’s also true that with hectic schedules and mundane commitments it can be difficult to get outside, or sometimes even find the motivation to do so.

That’s where 30 Days Wild came in. During her time working for the Wildlife Trusts, Lucy set up the 30 Days Wild campaign to encourage people to do “random acts of wildness” for every day in June. Involvement has grown exponentially since the campaign began five years ago and encourages everyone to take part in wildlife-based activities, whether that’s noticing something new, sharing experiences with others or taking a more practical approach and making positive changes to the environment.

The campaign led to Lucy expanding 30 days into 365 and so came her beautiful new book, published earlier this year. The concept isn’t to climb a mountain or build a pond each day, but instead encourages us to take part in ways as simple as making a daisy chain or buying a reusable coffee cup. When broken down into small steps and prompted by useful hints and ideas, Lucy’s book shows that it’s easy to stay wild even in a technological world.

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I’m embarrassed to admit that I signed up for 30 Days Wild a few years ago and abandoned ship within the first week. Now I see that I’d had my sights set too high. Sometimes it’s impossible to walk outside every day, so Lucy recommends stashing back-up plans up your sleeve, such as buying a new field guide or queuing up a Netflix documentary when you’re feeling lacklustre or just lacking the time.

Inspired by Lucy’s passion and eager to give the project another go, I purchased something I’d seen earlier at Birdfair but couldn’t think of anything to use it for. I’d spotted a beautiful hardback sketchbook with stunning artwork from Mandi Baykaa-Murray AKA “The Feather Lady” on the front, who paints extraordinarily detailed bird portraits onto feathers (side note: check out Mandi’s art it’s truly incredible!) Now I had the perfect reason to buy it. Day one: Start a wild diary.