January. A tricky month with a slow start and lots of putting things in place for the year ahead but most notably my trade fair stand which went down well with both other exhibitors and potential stockists!

I had a vision to create a bothy style booth to try and engage my potential clients and make me stand out from the crowd. It ended up looking better than I imagined and I’m really glad I put in the time and effort to get creative with my 2m x 1m space. I’ve kept the ‘stone walls’ for next year with plans to probably do something very similar. Continuity at these events is key, similar to building a brand, I want potential clients from this year to look out for me next year in the same place with the same style. I couldn’t have done this without my friends and neighbour! I borrowed lots of props that can be seen below.

Aside from my bothy booth ‘success’ - was my trade fair experience a success? I would say, definitely. I had many engaging and positive conversations with lots of businesses. I’ve picked up a few contracts already from it, including new stockists in Glasgow, Cairngorm National Park, Glencoe and Inverness with many more ‘maybes.’

If anyone reading this is thinking about doing the trade fair or have any questions about my stand, please get in touch, I’d be happy to share my experience.

Additionally I’ve been planning my booth for Scotland's Trade Fair at the SECC (Glasgow) in mid January. After a very productive call with my mentor from the IMPACT 30 programme I’ve been completing throughout 2024, I was encouraged to take the visuals of my booth a bit more seriously. In an attempt to stand out from the crowd, I’ve decided to make my stand look like the inside of a bothy. It matches the aesthetics of my business and allows me to showcase my work in a creative way (while hopefully engaging a new crowd of businesses). I’ve got brick effect wallpaper, a wooden floor, various bothy props like walking sticks, lanterns and I’m hoping to make a (model) wood burner. I’ll hang my work up on the walls, have my t-shirts hanging from the drying line and I’ve got some old furniture to populate the booth. Photos to follow, wish me luck!

As I said goodbye to January, February has rolled by without a chance to publish my January blog so I’m lumping them together, it’s that sort of few months where motivation is on the lower end but gradually getting back into the swing of things.

A quick note to say I’ve finally released longer whisky stave frames! I’ve been asked about getting longer ones made for a number of years at markets so here they are. They fit A4 landscape prints and also A3 portrait prints. I’ve also got mini ones made up that fit A5 portrait! These can be bought separately here or with any of my landscape prints in the print store.

3 Bagshot Row in my new landscape whisky frames

February’s big event was definitely the Fort William Mountain Festival. Late 2024, I was asked by the committee members of the festival to create a piece of artwork for the festival. The drawing was to incorporate all things Mountain and I was given free reign to come up with the design. The idea came after seeing the Kendal Mountain Festival’s artwork by Emma Reith. I’ve included a photo below of our side by side comparisons, a very different style as you can see. My work is very much literal where Emma’s work is more open to interpretation. I love Emma’s style, it’s a fantastic piece of work, show her some love on socials and her website!

The festival was a highlight of my year in 2024 and 2025 was even better. The festival runs over the mid February weekend and is a celebration of film, talks, music, writing, art and innovation.

I was asked back to do a drawing workshop in association with the Scottish Mountaineering Press. This took place on the Saturday morning with a trip up Glen Nevis with a pre-planned route/structure. The day before the workshop, I joined Phoebe Sleath on a reconnaissance mission up Glen Nevis to scout our respective workshop drawing/painting stops. Originally I had planned to venture up towards the CIC Hut at the foot of Ben Nevis’ North Face but the weather had other ideas. After some help from Anna Danby from Wild Roots Guiding, I changed my workshop location to the beautiful Glen Nevis.

I woke up early Saturday morning to find an unforecasted fall of snow at town level. My initial thoughts were dread as anyone who has driven up Glen Nevis knows the road is quite steep and narrow in places and could prove difficult driving conditions with any snow. I met my workshop group and our mountain leader, Lindsay Warrack at the Nevis Centre carpark at 07:45. Lindsay from Wild Roots Guiding was in charge of our safety for the workshop.

Snow under foot for our early morning walk up Glen Nevis

We split into groups and drove up to our start point, Paddy’s Bridge, with no issues, the road had been cleared. We quested out to our first of two stops which I had scouted the day prior. A small glade, just off the main track, was our first stop. Slightly elevated for commanding views of the Glen but sheltered enough to hunker down for warmth, I began my spiel. After some instruction we chose our drawing subject, a large rocky saddle (Beinn Dearg) just off the main Ben Nevis summit plateau. We ventured up to our second spot as the snow started falling again. The second spot was a bit more open to the elements but we were able to shelter inside a ruined building (barely 2 walls) which I later found out was the old school house. We set to work drawing Meall Cumhann’s rocky crags and when everyone was quite settled and the temperature started increasing, we ran out of time. I set a challenge for my group to complete their drawing for a chance to win a free print. You can see lots of images from the workshop below. A very successful and enjoyable day. Thank you to the Scottish Mountaineering Press and Mountain Festival for organising and Lindsay at Wild Roots Guiding for keeping us safe.

I also ran a little competition for my workshop attendees! They were tasked with completing their drawing for a chance to win a free print. I got 5 submissions and these were put on my instagram where my followers voted for their favourite. The submissions can be seen below, thank you so much to those who submitted and voted!

Competition winning drawing of Meall Cumhann, Glen Nevis

For the remainder of the festival, I spent my time at my stand and networking with lots of interesting people that had traveled to the festival, climbing at the Three Wise Monkeys climbing gym and attending a few of the events, most notably the Storylands Sessions which was absolutely brilliant, I can’t recommend it enough. Stories, music, poems and lots more from all walks of life. Until next year! If you haven’t been to the festival before, make sure you mark it in the calendar for 2026. Dates will be coming soon.

To wrap up this longer than usual blog post (go me!) I wanted to introduce my new product, the wooden postcard. I’ve started creating these lasered postcards from 4mm ply with my designs. The first one was An Lochan Uaine which I’ve added a wash of green and blue inks to capture its likeness. Available in many different designs, these wooden postcards will be an addition to my market stand when they start back up again from May onwards. They’re not available in the products section of my website.

Thanks again for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, please leave a comment or email me if you have any questions regarding anything above!

Cheers ~ Jack

Start of year round up! (I missed January sorry… I will try harder)

December ‘24 - Final thoughts, looking ahead to 2025