Big landscapes, small work

A super creative nudge

Welcome to my wee corner of Substack. I am a seasonal artist living on the Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland. I am the custodian of approximately two acres of land that includes a woodland, a meadow and my wee garden. I offer a seasonal book arts project for paid subscribers if you are interested and you can read more about that HERE. Grab a cuppa and lets delve into our relationship with the shifting seasons…

I have been inspired by landscapes since I was a small child. On family car journeys I was the one staring out of the window as the landscapes shifted in front of my very eyes and I thought it was magical. I still think it is magical.

At 38 I moved my own family to a small Scottish island and we have had unlimited access to some of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet and we feel very blessed. All four children appreciate the different landscapes. Molly is likely to be found in a forest somewhere. Harry up a hill somewhere. George on the river in a kyak and Max wandering along the shore. They all have their favourite places, as do I. Forever, that has been the moorlands and on a day when we have a huge forest fire on the island I, once again, contemplated the importance of all these landscapes. A human being has lit the fire that is causing the most awful devastation and the island is sad. Landscapes belong to the planet but once again human action has damaged them and the wildlife that rely on them. I am not only sad but very angry.

I am letting my anger go by reflecting on a wee exercise I did a few years ago that I want to repeat. Landscapes are big spaces with different elements that just know how to speak to each other. In that landscape conversation beauty is born and we are fortunate to witness that beauty. Capturing such beauty can be overwhelming even for experienced landscape artists. My medium was textile and capturing landscapes became my passion.

These pieces take a long time to create and that can be quite daunting. So one day in my studio I picked up a piece of packing box and cut it into small pieces. The intention was to try and capture the essence of landscapes and quickly the sea and heather moorland began to dominate so I just went with it. Less is most definitely more when it comes to working small. My other top tip would be to work quickly as otherwise over-thinking is likely to dominant your intuitive response.

Use scraps of paper, yarn, string and fabric sparingly and don’t be frightened to leave blank spaces as that will inject some drama into your tiny landscapes. The joy with this exercise is that you get to use up your own scraps. You also get to experiment freely without fear of ruining a larger piece. Most, if not all, the ideas can be upscaled to larger work if that suits. I believe that working this small (approximately 4x3 inches) teaches us a great deal about composition, in particular. From this wee creative experiment I then adopted this as a practice when contemplating new pieces. My work has become very mixed media over recent years and the enemy of that approach is ‘too much’. It is easy to blur the message of your piece by using too many elements. By producing a small landscape first the lessons are learnt early in the process.

Despite these being produced on a piece of waste packaging and using up scraps I still have all of these pieces. They have become an important teaching tool in my classes but they mean more to me than that. I can see my creative voice in them and that is joyful. Maybe give it a go, you will likely surprise yourself. If you want to pay homage to this journey use a piece of cardboard box. It seems a good place to start.

Until next time,

Fiona x