Month: September 2025

Clay head of Samer from a weekend sculpting course at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop with Duncan Robertson.

Charcoal, crayon and graphite on paper – 76 x 56 cm.

Sketch, Ruby Bay, Elie.

A good westerley this morning ruffles the shoreline. Clambering over the rocks, a picture of my younger self, but now cautious, considered. I try a small leap, it feels good, I just need a bit of cajoling these days. The rocks here are impermeable, the sea has seemingly made little impact, grey in colour or rather, if I look closer more of a burnt charcoal ashey smudge of a colour- ‘mole’s breath’ according to a paint chart I am looking at on my desk at home. Below the rocks the sea slaps, slips over bronze bladderwrack . The wind is picking up and the sea responds, churning itself round the small bay, dashing into the smallest of gaps, salt floats high in the air, curing this landscape like a memory. A startling white gannet glides past heading east to the Bass Rock.

Climbing this short rise the view to the west and the north opens out towards mountains in the distance – Schiehallion for sure and others I can’t name as yet. Swallows dart across the topmost fields, old hawthorns berried on the brow of the hill. Eyebright, birdsong, gorse bees. A housemartin zips past my face, so close I feel the whoosh as it dips its wing and is away, like the summer up here on the edge. A vole scurries into the long grass. A new view, a new home ? I like the clear, broad space and the constant north light. I think so.