End of summer poetry. A week can seem a long time at this time of year. A week ago we were at our beach chalet, enjoying walks along the clifftop and I was appreciating early-morning escapes with my sketchbook, catching the last of the summer before it disappeared with back to school ironing and nagging about homework. I was savouring the swifts and swallows as they flitted across the sand, aware that they too will be on the move, making new starts. It's at times like this th

This summer I knew I wanted to take a break from social media. My workshops are all about being present and mindful, and yet, like many people who are self employed I've struggled to maintain a good online/offline balance, feeling that I constantly had to share my work online to feel productive. So a few months ago I decided to do much, much, more sketching while I've been out and about - by the beach, in the pub, in cafes, in galleries, in the woods. And it's been transforma

Children and their parents doing some nature-based activities. Over the summer holidays I've been working at Green Futures in Grimsby and delivering some HAF (Holiday Activities and Food) starting in July with a group of children and parents from the Oasis Community Hub in Nunsthorpe. We went on a nature trail, did some outdoor activities, did some mindfulness colouring created some habitats, did an eye-spy and sat around our 'campfire in the woods'. It was lovely for the sit

Taking a closer look at rosemary. On Thursday 3 September I was asked to deliver some nature-based mindfulness sessions in Grimsby's Town Hall. This was part of an NELC wellbeing day. I love our town hall, it's a beautiful building, but there isn't a lot of nature in it, so I had to improvise! I ran two 20-minute sessions doing some work around water-based mark-making, gestural drawings, and sensory investigation of some rosemary, that had come fresh out of my garden. I'm alw

Children busy in the classroom creating art and poetry inspired by a trip to the chalk stream. In May and July I worked alongside Barmpot Theatre and James the Canoe River Cleaner on a project to get local children engaged with the chalk streams and blow wells on their doorsteps. We worked with four schools as well as the Lincolnshire Chalk Stream project to create art and poetry that inspired a set of puppets that the children produced to show their love for their landscape.

Earlier this year I finished an artist's residence with Fortis therapy in Grimsby. During the project I worked with a selection of clients, heard their stories, and then created a series of illustrations based on what they'd told. This was a powerful way to reflect with clients and enabled them to look at their progress and their stories through a visual, not just a verbal lens. The finished pieces were made into an animation by Fortis and were also framed for their offices i

Sunshine on the mural. Last year I was invited to do a mural for Learning4Life in Freeman St, Grimsby, this is a School of Sanctuary and the brief was to brighten up a gloomy courtyard area and represent the many nationalities that the school works with. It's a long wall, so I divided it up into windows and created images with leading lines to make the space seem wider. Each panel had a flower theme to represent the national flowers of all the countries involved. A year on an

In May this year I decided that I would give my #dailydrawing practice a nature theme. I'm now four months into this daily discipline and I've learned so much and paid so much more attention to the subtle changes in the seasons, and also the impact that this summer's heatwaves have had on my local landscape and plants. It's going to be more of a challenge as we move into the colder months to keep finding something every day in my garden, or out and about, but already I know t

I'm really lucky at the minute as I've been asked to help out at a 3.5-acre community garden. When I'm not painting walls and helping to get the place ready for an open day next month I'm keeping an eye out for what's blooming and blossoming as the light returns. It's such a privilege to be able to use my nature journaling to notice and record what's going on as the wheel of the year turns.

Late February's nature journaling page. I am currently working for two days a week at Green Futures in Grimsby, a 3.5-acre site that's run mostly by volunteers with a woodland and nature walk. I love this place, I volunteered here years ago when my son was little, and now I'm back I want to document what's growing over the course of a year in my sketchbook. My nature journaling is normally inspired by my garden, or the beach near my chalet on the Humberston Fitties, so I'm

On Saturday 7 March 2026 I was working with artist Anna Bean and Our Big Picture 's Saturday morning art club on the last of my engagement workshops around Grimsby's mounds and marshes. This activity involving creating an island and then a collaborative mural has been really popular with children, and it's been a great way to tell my stories about the marshes and how we moved Grimsby's river. This session fitted in well with the children as they are working with Anna on a fut

Some of the photos, research and illustration from my We Are Marshy project is up at the Fishing Heritage Centre in Grimsby. Some of my We Are Marshy Folk research has gone up at the cafe in the Fishing Heritage Centre . I've been working with Louise and Dave for several years now and I'm always happy when my work is up in their brilliant centre. I did an artist in residence there a while back and it was great to be able to draw the exhibits and learn more about the fishing i

A large-scale piece inspired by a canoe trip on the Freshney. One of the things that I have really enjoyed about this We Are Marshy Folk project is the large-scale collage and calligraphy brush pieces I created after some of my field trips. They capture a sense of place for me in a way that a plain sketch wouldn't have done, for example in the ripples of sunlight on the water and the marsh irises along the banks. I hope to do more of these pieces in the future, as I also enjo

Between Monday 16 and Fri 21 February my illustrations and research went on display at the newly refurbished Our Big Picture in Grimsby last week - one visitor even came all the way from Spilsby to see it! Some of the work will be in the Fishing Heritage Centre during March as I pull the project to its conclusion. Talking with people over the last few weeks as I did public talks and put the work on display has prompted some great discussions and given me lots more information

On Tues 27 January 2026 I took my art materials and some really big sheets of paper to join a class at Littlecoates for a lovely afternoon with students who really engaged with the workshop. They each drew their own island, imagining what life would be like for early residents of Grimsby, before working on large collaborative pieces creating seascapes. They really seemed to enjoy the freedom of mark making. We were really pleased with the outcome, what a lovely school!

Gave the third of my talks on We Are Marshy Folk on Wednesday 28 January, as part of James (canoe river cleaner) and Eve's Winter Warmers. The room was packed, some people had biked. So grateful for people making the effort to come along and listen to my tales of Grimsby's marshes. @CreateNEL (Thanks also to James for the photos as I'm rubbish and didn't get a picture of the room full of people, as I was a bit distracted with the technology which was displaying everything pin

As part of my We Are Marshy Folk project I visited Yarborough Academy Year 5 on January 22nd. I talked to the students about Toothill, a huge Ice-Age mound that once acted as a look-out tower and would have been directly opposite their school. It was great to be able to talk to a class of eager and interested students about an area of town that doesn't normally get much attention. They went on to create their own mounds and islands thinking about what they would need to live

The reeds remember... Ask most people what comes to mind when we talk about the East or West Marshes of Grimsby, and what's likely is a row of terraced housing or statistics about areas of deprivation. An image of salt marsh or sheep grazing is unlikely to be the first thing you think of. We Are Marshy folk is a CreateNEL-funded project that aims to change that view with illustrated research into what our landscape looked like before the coming of the railways and the docks.

This illustration is talking about how we don't associate Grimsby with sheep, but that we definitely did have them! Over the last year I've been doing reserach for my We Are Marshy Folk project, and busily turning what I've found out into meaningful illustrations to make the story simple and engaging. My years in journalism taught me how to craft data and information into stories that people can catch onto and take away with them. This project has always been about creating a

I gave the first of my We Are Marshy Folk talks to the Civic Society in the Town Hall on Thursday night (15th January 2026). It was an amazing turn-out for such a dreary and wet January evening. I've been working on this project for nearly a year and it was so amazing to be be able to talk about all of my findings about sheep, the Fitty land and how the mounds and marshes in this area shaped the town. I'm giving another talk today at Grimsby in Bloom 11am if you want to know