 Pebbles on the Beach has moved... Since the summer, I have been based near Gairloch on the northwest coast of Scotland. I am happy to say that this is where you will find me for the foreseeable future. The move is opening up new opportunities, as well as giving me the chance to strengthen existing connections. I am looking forward to the next chapter.  Exhibitions I currently have paintings (all from The Shipping Forecast series) in two exhibitions - the "Out there in Torridon" exhibition at the Loch Torridon Community Centre Gallery, and the Members' Show at An Talla Solais in Ullapool (my first time exhibiting there, delighted to be taking part!). Opening times : Torridon - Mon, Wed & Friday, 11am - 3pm. Ullapool - Open every day 11am - 1.30pm and 2-4pm, until 22 December. I am delighted to say that I will be exhibiting at Inverewe Garden in 2020 - more news about this soon. Christmas Fairs I'm taking part in two events in the coming weeks - firstly -
I will have a selection of my products at the fairs - shown above are Shipping Forecast calendars, mugs, coasters, small original linoprints (new designs), customised sketchbooks (watercolour paper) and small original watercolours. As always, thank you so much for your interest in my work, it is greatly appreciated.
All the best, Jennifer
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 I hope this finds you well and that you have enjoyed the summer - it definitely feels as if we are moving into autumn now. I am happy to be taking part in North East Open Studios again this year - at the same venue as last year - the Phoenix Centre at Newton Dee in Bieldside, Aberdeen. There will be nine of us showing a lovely range of work - from furniture to textiles, fused glass to painting, mixed media and printmaking. We call ourselves Art at the Phoenix for this event. I am number 302 in the NEOS book.
I have continued with The Shipping Forecast series of paintings and will have more of these on show, as well as small mounted works, mugs, coasters and of course greetings cards and 2020 calendars. There will be updates on my Pebbles on the Beach Facebook page throughout NEOS.
Opening Times -
I look forward to seeing you there!  "Occasional Rain" - original watercolour You are invited to my Solo Exhibition : 4-29 June at the Acorn Gallery in the Acorn Centre in Inverurie. The exhibition is open during cafe opening hours, so you can enjoy coffee and cake, or a light lunch during your visit! Open Tuesday - Thursday 10am - 3pm, Friday & Saturday, 10am - 4pm. The Acorn Centre is within Inverurie West Parish Church, on West High Street, Inverurie, AB51 3SA  "Fair, moderate or good". The main focus of the show is a collection of new "Shipping Forecast" paintings, continuing with the theme I started last year during North East Open Studios. This is a series of seascapes of various sizes, all with titles based on phrases from the the well known and loved Shipping Forecast, broadcast every day on Radio 4. There will also be a few paintings of Bennachie on show. I hope you enjoy the exhibition!
"Falling more slowly" "Occasionally high later"
 "Good, occasionally poor" 80cm x 22cm approx. February already! I hope this finds you settling in to 2019 and keeping warm in the recent wintry spell of weather. This year I have taken the plunge and signed up for "Dream Plan Do", a scheme run by the Design Trust to help artists and makers (all creatives in fact) make a success of their business. It centres around a journal/workbook which asks lots of questions; some easy to answer (not many!), some more difficult and some downright scary! There is also a Facebook group, where we can compare notes, organise to meet face to face and agree that we need to reduce the amount of time we spend on social media... So far, it has certainly made me think about what I am doing and why, and where I am heading. There may be some changes ahead, but all good ones, I hope. I will keep you posted. In the meantime, here are some exhibition dates for your diary - quite a long way ahead, but I guess it's good to be thinking about warm days ahead while we are still in February! I will be taking some work over to the west coast to be part of the new "The Living Land Sea Sky" exhibition at the Loch Torridon Centre, which will be on from 14th May - 31st August. Current (winter) opening hours are 11-3, Mon, Wed & Fri. Easter to October, open 10-4, Monday - Saturday. Delighted to say I'll be having a solo exhibition at the Acorn Centre in Inverurie. This will run from Monday 3rd June - Sat 29th June. Opening hours to be confirmed nearer the time. Next up is the annual Milltimber, Bieldside & Cults Festival Art Exhibition, which runs this year from 22-25 August (Thurs - Sun). At the Phoenix Centre, Newton Dee, Bieldside, in Aberdeen. And last but by no means least, I'm delighted to say that I will be showing my work as part of Art at the Phoenix at Newton Dee, for this year's North East Open Studios (NEOS).The dates for this year's event are Sat 14 - Mon 23 September. There will be ten artists and makers at the venue this time. As you probably know, I produced some more "Shipping Forecast" paintings back in October - now it's time to get them framed and ready to go out into the world! Images above and below show a couple of them.  "Fair. Moderate or Good." 98cm x 24cm approx.
Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to come and visit the Phoenix Centre at Newton Dee during North East Open Studios last month (October already, how did that happen?!). It is always lovely to catch up with old friends and to meet new folk. Many interesting conversations were had, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback about my new work was very much appreciated. It turns out that lots of you are very fond of the colour blue! I often find myself listening more than talking, during NEOS, which suits me fine as I am more naturally a listener than a talker. And so it was that I came away enriched by Shipping Forecast related stories; the lady who had the "Sailing By" tune played at her seafaring father's funeral, the friend who came to hate geography lessons at school, because they were made to transcribe the shipping forecast as it was broadcast, and she could never keep up. Another visitor who lamented listening to the midnight broadcast, as it meant that, once again, she could not sleep. There were other stories too - an older gentleman who had been a cabin boy on a boat which sailed up and down the west coast of Scotland in the 1960's, who recognised the view of the Torridon mountains from Gairloch, in one of my paintings. He told me what his weekly wages were, and that beer in those days was 6d a pint (not that he was drinking it at 16, of course...). I love this sparking of memories which my work can produce; that recognition of a place, or a time, or a feeling. To me, that's one of the best parts of NEOS. A word that I heard many time during the week about my Shipping Forecast series of paintings was "atmospheric". I'll take that, thank you. Many thanks again to all who came to visit; your interest and support is greatly appreciated. In the meantime, if you would like to get hold of my cards or other items, please see my Stockists page for where you can find them. Some items are also available from my online Shop here on my website. 
Quite often, I find that I do not end up doing what I set out to do. That doesn't mean that I don't achieve my goal, I just do it a different way. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
It's a bit like going to the shops to buy bread and milk. Yes, just bread and milk, that's all I need. But do I come home with only bread and milk? Of course not. I'll pick up cheese and avocadoes (if they are on offer), maybe a mango (ditto). And then of course we might be out of oatcakes and pasta and rice. Better pop some in the trolley. And plenty of other unhealthy options which I won't mention here, for fear of giving the wrong impression (moi?). Or, if I go for a walk in the woods, I won't intend to take photos, but something will catch my eye. Some bright green moss, yellow lichen on a rock, feathery lichen hanging from a branch. So I come home with more than I intended. More images to save and look at again and take pleasure from. I might even pick something up along the way - an interesting twig, some larch cones or a fern frond. A feather. So it was when I went to art class over on south Deeside the other week. I was planning to paint some landscapes; had printed out photos in my bag to use for inspiration. As I went to load my art kit into the car, I noticed the dead head of a hydrangea (from my neighbour's garden) lying on our drive. Of course I picked it up. It was one of those lacewing ones, with a few lifeless petals clinging on at the edges. It sat on the passenger seat as I drove to my class. When I got there, I could see the remnants of rosebay willowherb beside the track where I park each week. I picked some. I couldn't not pick some. I had always wanted to paint this transitory plant, with its bright pink flowers which turn to bean-like seed pods and then fluffy floatingness. Today was the day. I'd missed the flowers, of course - I'll have to wait a while for those to appear again. What a joy it was to paint these - of course I did a few sketches of the serendipitous Hydrangea head as well.
It's that time of year again. Artists and makers will be opening their studios, garages, front rooms, shops, galleries and other miscellaneous spaces this weekend, to show the public what they do. It's my 6th year taking part - once again I am in The Cabin in my back garden. This year I'm number 227 in the directory. There may well be baking. I have been tidying and sorting through my work from the past year, deciding what to put on show. The Cabin is quite small, as those of you who have visited before will know - I am contemplating having an outside exhibition space, weather permitting (and if I can find where I put the little gazebo...), in order to show a wider range of my work. There are more artists than ever included in the trail I'm part of - this year called The Lower Deeside Trail (see image below). I have also posted this on my Facebook page, and paper copies will be available at any of the entries listed on it. Time to get planning where to go - I have started making my list already! I look forward to seeing you and welcoming you to The Cabin!   Delighted to say that this painting, "Letterbox at Mellon Udrigle" is off to a new home after the local art exhibition which I took part in last weekend. Apparently the buyer (I did not meet her) had been to Mellon Udrigle, so there was a link. It's one of my favourite beaches on the west coast - take a turn off the main road at Laide, north of Gairloch, Poolewe and Aultbea, but south of Gruinard, and out along a single track road past a string of houses, over the little bridge across the burn and then up over the hill and back down to the coast again. Watch out for seals along the coastline. And seabirds - gannets diving perhaps. It was on Mellon Udrigle beach a while ago, on an overcast day, that I glimpsed a movement to my left, as I stood taking photographs of the sea. At first I thought it was a dog, but then I noticed the way the animal moved. A sort of lolloping, ungainly gait. It was an otter, headed from the dunes down to the water. They are built for swimming, of course, not running. I was not quick enough with my camera, choosing to enjoy the moment, instead.
Mellon Udrigle beach, photos taken early April, 2016.
 Do you recognise this painting? Yes. it's one of mine! The Green Boat, gracing the cover of The Leopard magazine.
A wee while ago, a lovely lady called Annie Woolridge contacted me, asking if I would be happy to be interviewed for an article she was writing on artists based in northeast Scotland. There was to be a series of articles. I happily said yes. Annie came to The Cabin one morning a couple of months ago. We drank coffee and chatted; she admired my paintings hung around the walls. I had tidied the studio a bit. At some point she turned on a very unobtrusive recording machine. It was all very relaxed and pleasant; I felt as if we had known each other a while. I partly forgot about the process. then realised last week that the article might be in the current edition of the magazine. I popped into our local Co-op (I knew they stocked it) and lo and behold, there was my painting on the front cover! Above it on the magazine stand was the Scottish Field, with Alexander McCall Smith's name writ large upon it. I was thrilled to be in such excellent company, even in print! In fact I was so excited (not a very accustomed state for me, as those who know me well will confirm), I mentioned to the poor young lad at the checkout that it was my painting on the cover of the magazine, when I purchased a copy. He smiled politely.
The older I get, the more I believe in fate. In things happening for a reason. Those apparently coincidental meetings which result in all manner of happenings. Sometimes we have to engineer fate a little, but that's not a bad thing. Everything and everyone needs a little nudge in the right direction every so often. And so it was that I ventured out into Royal Deeside a few weekends ago, to see what opportunities might be there, for exhibiting my paintings. I had in mind a visit to Larks Gallery in Ballater. That is where we went. I got into conversation with the gallery owner, and the next thing I knew, I'd been invited to be "Artist of the Month" for March. I floated home on a little cloud, while feverishly working out if I had enough framed work to fulfill my promise. I didn't, but I had enough time to remedy the situation. I always work better to deadlines, so this helped me get myself organised. Over the past few years, realisation has dawned that no-one will see my work, or have the chance to buy it, if it is sitting in my studio. Simple really, isn't it? Occasionally, of course, someone will see my work here on my website, but that is less common. So, I am delighted to have some of my work currently on show at Larks Gallery (including the three paintings shown above) and hope it will be the start of an ongoing relationship. They are now stocking some of my greetings cards too.
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