Reflecting on the year just passed is always a good thing to do and an important aspect of being an artist is spending time considering how to move on and develop into the future. My recent blog post discusses some of the highlights of 2013 and below are a few things looking to the year ahead.

Firstly – teaching in 2014

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I am looking forward to spending a week in Ullapool in July at Bridge House Art teaching a week-long course focussing initially on sketching outdoors before developing these drawings into prints. I have had the privilege of teaching through Bridge House Art for the last few years and it is always a huge pleasure to spend time in such a beautiful part of the world in their creative surroundings. More information about the course can be found on the Bridge House Art website.

I am very excited to be teaching a mixed media weekend workshop at the end of August for Old Sleningford in Yorkshire. It will be lovely to be back in that part of the world, which has strong family connections for me, and I am pleased to have some work in Sleningford tutor's exhibition at the Zillah Bell Gallery in Thirsk which opens on Friday 10th January and runs until 25th January.

I will also be teaching two summer school weeks for Leith School of Art in August – the programme is not out yet, information will be put up here as soon as it is available. .

And in other news...



I was recently asked by Scottish charity, Art in Healthcare, to donate some work to this worthwhile cause, which puts works of art into hospital and healthcare settings. I gave them six prints from my British Birds screen print series (Treecreeper screen print above).



Earlier last year I made two unique monotypes for the Ghost of Gone Birds project depicting extinct birds - Passenger Pigeons and New Zealand Bush Wrens. I was delighted to receive my free copy of the Ghosts of Gone Birds book, a fantastic publication full of great works of art and bits of writing documenting the project. Ghosts of Gone Birds aims to highlight a continuing issue with the persecution of birds through bringing extinct birds back to life in visual art, music and writing. The book is well worth a look and the two monotypes I created for the project are included in it, along with some explanatory notes about how and why I made them.

And finally – my new website is up and running but continues to be tweaked so please do get in touch if you have any feedback about your experience of navigating it.

Happy New Year everyone, may it be full of birds and art!