A loving tribute to Aulde Grumps who is a very feral cat who I have been feeding for over two years now.
Though he is a wild old boy he is still very regal and always washes after he has been fed, which was my main inspiration for this picture.
He now has two purpose-built cat nests in my shed and sometimes bestows me the great privilege of letting me stroke him, but not always.

Handmade felt with Harris Tweed appliqué and machine embroidery. Approximately 75cm square

Carved in Cop Crag Sandstone, the crescent and v-rod from Rosemarkie.

Made for my father, Jean-Claude, for father’s day.

Original design composed of a single-unbroken line. Erne Lake was executed by screen printing on watercolor paper. A gold size was screened and gilded with aluminum leaf, a transparent green glaze was printed over the aluminum leaf and the darker green was printed as a knock-out.

Saint Ninian, bishop, missionary, and apostle to Scotland, drawn and painted in the style of a early medieval illuminated manuscript. Inspired by the Book of Kells, the ruins of Whithorn Abbey, and artifacts such as the clog-rinny (the Bell of St Ninian).

Commissioned to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, this piece was carved to celebrate the dedication of the Kirk at St Vigeans to St Fechin of Fore, an early Irish saint.

A new image illustrated using watercolour and coloured pencil.
Based on the ancient celtic symbol of rebirth and my love of my garden and the surrounding trees, the Green Man has been portrayed many times in various forms. While not technically as intricate as previous work, I like the idea of the visual link between the creative style and the ancient celtic tradition.

It is difficult for people in the 21st century, routinely surrounded by colours of every hue, to imagine how the sight of the Book of Durrow would have affected viewers in the late 600s AD. I have attempted to convey some of this wonder by recreating pages in watercolour and ink using modern lightfast organic pigments augmented with raised gesso and 24 carat gold leaf in the manner of later medieval illuminated manuscripts.

While this treatment may seem like heresy to some, I argue that my own experience when I first witnessed the transformation that the addition of polished gold brought to the designs was a valuable addition to my understanding of the experiences of 7th century and later early medieval viewers of these books. The addition of polished gold leaf not only adds the experience of ‘the Light of the World’ reflecting out of each page, but it also helps tie the designs more firmly to the Eastern manuscript traditions of Byzantine and Greek Orthodox religious art.

This is a further attempt at reproducing a double page illumination from the Book of Durrow in modern organic watercolour pigments similar in tone to how the pages might have looked when first illuminated back around 680 AD.

I have again embellished some areas of the illumination with raised gesso and 24 carat gold leaf in an attempt to give modern eyes the sense of awe and wonder that the original manuscript might have induced in the world of mainly muted tones in the 7th century.

I like endless knotwork, and create modern and abstract designs for circles, in vector 3 dimensional graphics. The dimension are infinite, dependent on scale, just like text is on a computer. The three dimensions are height width and depth, the depth being how near or far away the object is… hence its size, relative to position in space. The smallest object one can place at a point in space ( the point is an independent mathematical scale ) is a pixel. Pixels cannot overlap two dimensionally – but can in three dimensions. For graphics on a PC screen or TV, one uses just two dimensions for the pixel placement, and the third dimension is how near or far away from it one is.

i explore all kinds of abstract and traditional celtic knotwork designs, but favour the ability of computer graphics for vector work, since my hands cannot reliably reproduce the spatial accuracy needed. I use a laser to cut such designs in wood and the lines are accurate to 1/3rd, to 1/5th of a mm .

Commissioned by the Tay Landscape Partnership, this is my new Pictish Cross for the historic village of Forteviot, near Perth. The cross commemorates the king of Pictavia,  Cinaed son of Alpin, who died at Forteviot in 858 AD.

The cross side uses knotwork motifs from fragments found at Forteviot. The key pattern is inspired by carvings at Iona.