I have loved putting drawings to stories since I was very young. It seemed what drawing was for. Now I am coming back more and more to that original inspiration. Here are a few of my ventures ...
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These drawings began as a commission to illustrate a town trail in Campbeltown as part of a tourist initiative. A brochure was produced with a map of Campbeltown on one side (illustrated by myself) and a map of the village of Tarbert (illustrated with line drawings by the excellent Ann Thomas) on the other.
The idea grew from this humble beginning - aided by my father producing a range of hand-coloured prints of Kintyre views - that I should continue the theme and create more simple line drawings for cards and prints. We named them 'The Kintyre Collection' and they proved to be successful in a modest way. Some images sold - mostly as cards - better than others. The one of 'Craigard' was conspicuous in this, mainly because prior to being a first class hotel, it was the local maternity hospital and many who saw their start in life there aspired to own a picture of it ... or so it would seem. Someone remarked that the large room which functioned as the delivery room in the hospital was now the bridal suite, which took things from birth and back to conception. Others had very limited appeal (like the Burnside Paintshop Store drawing - briefly popular as a 'Welcome to Your New Home' card, with 3 sold). I suspect that they told a story of a particular time, and having re-visited 'The Wee Toon' recently I was aware just how much it has changed in the years since we sold The Oystercatcher Gallery. |
This was a story submitted to a competition run by Chambers, the Edinburgh publishers. It ended up on the short list, but did not win. I never found out who or what did win, nor was I told that my submission was not being used. It remained in their files until I finally plucked up the courage to ask them for the return of my work.
Having only recently come across this again, I might publish this as an ebook. Only the illustrations are here; a bit of re-writing of the text might be in order. |