Three more new templates works in landscape format. I made quills from birds' feathers to draw some of the shapes, mixing the uneven, splashy ink lines with the precision of technical and mapping pens used on others, collage, and areas of tone created with repeating lines. They are probably the lightest, most free work I have made for a few years and I was pleased that they seem to connect to my younger self at art school. One day when I was studying painting at Gray's School of Art I had exclusive use of a printing press, and I made about 20 monotypes based on landscape drawings I had made out in the Deeside country near Aberdeen. I worked them with loose paint after printing, and it was a simply wonderful day, a big favourite in all my years at art school. Today I am delighted that my new works are reminiscent of those.

The first two artworks made as a result of the templates diary. They are on ruled sheets of paper taken from a vintage Cameron's Register of Class Marks, R.H. The book had never been used; it belonged to my mother, who was assistant head teacher at a primary school in Rosyth for 40 years. The sheets measure 21x34cm, or 8-1/4 x 13-1/2 inches as it was back then, and are ruled in charming light blue, dark blue and pink.

Nos. 99 and 100 - it feels great to have got this far with the templates diary. This, however, is where it stops. I have removed unused pages from the book to allow it to close with enough pages remaining to use for experiments and notes, for I am now moving on to make artworks in their own right which can be exhibited and sold.
Watch this space for new work in the next few days ...

Up to no.98 now, I have definitely decided to stop the templates diary in favour of making artworks in their own right once I have reached 100. I'll continue with the book itself as a sketchbook for experiments, rather than a diary, as I have several ideas lined up to try - at least, for as long as the book can be closed, it's already bulky with so much thick paint and collage.

If you visited this page earlier and saw an image of a cushion here instead of these drawings, it was because of a weird bug which confuses images from this blog with ones from my illustration and design blog at Binky McKee if they have the same title (i.e. the date posted). I must get more inventive with my titling! It's comforting to see there are other kinds of bugs than coronavirus around at the moment.
​I couldn't believe it when I noticed I have been doing these for 15 weeks now ...

This week's six, and I am up to no.86 now. I wasn't intending this diary to be a 100 days project, rather I saw it as a whole year's worth of drawings. In just over two weeks I will have reached no. 100 and I'm undecided about whether to continue working in the diary. The book itself is beginning to bulk up with pieces of collage, paint, and wrinkly paper on the pages. If I fill up the whole book it will be impossible to close it! Fat books aside, I am very happy with the progress of the work, and I do wonder if my time would be better spent making actual art works which I can sell.