Perthshire Artisans Share Their Stories

Perthshire Artisans is a curated group of designers and makers brought together as one ‘Smart Village’, providing them with an additional route to market and a supportive community of creatives with whom they can share ideas, opportunities and challenges. Each Artisan has their own unique story involving their background, creative process and inspirations. They also draw from their love of the Perthshire landscape and local communities. Meet a few of them below:

Claire Brownbridge 

Claire is an artist and printmaker who creates colourful and charismatic prints inspired by the countryside animals she encounters locally. She loves to capture their quirky personalities and the comedic ways in which they interact with each other, and her as she tries to photograph them. She use these photos to create initial sketches, which she then refines into line drawings and scans into her computer. She likes to disconnect the lines of her drawing from the overall shape to give a feeling of life and movement. 

One of Claire’s favourite walks for inspiration is to Rotmell Loch from the Cally car park behind Dunkeld.  “If I am feeling especially energetic I continue to Loch Ordie,” she adds. “I love the little row of cottages!” 

Claire says she always manages to combine a coffee and cake with her walks, and recommends Loch Leven’s Larder: “I love to sit outside - it is a bit of a suntrap and the views are lovely.”

While there, Claire suggests taking the opportunity to visit a nearby historical site: “Lochleven Castle is a fantastic trip in the summer. A little boat takes you to the island from Kinross and you can spend a lovely hour explore the shoreline and the castle itself.” 

Highland Perthshire is not left out: “If I am heading out for the day I love exploring Glen Tilt and the walk back to Blair Atholl along the river, with the added bonus of being able to pop into the House of Bruar for a helping of their macaroni cheese on the way home.”

Claire’s trips out and about in Perthshire have resulted in a charming and colourful range of homewares, including tea towels, coasters and cards. Her current ranges available on Perthshire Artisans feature highland cows and pink-footed geese. 

Libby Scott

One of the latest creatives to join Perthshire Artisans, Libby is a landscape artist whose work captures both the drama of the remote Scottish landscape and a glimpse of a moment in time, evoking a sense of mood of the land and place. With a long creative background beginning in textiles, moving into ceramics and then developing onto painting and printmaking, Libby is continually fascinated by both the creative process and the alchemy of the paint materials themselves.

Equipped with her rucksack art kit, Libby begins on location, directly capturing a Highland Perthshire scene. She gathers source material through sketching, drawing, painting, photography whilst also noting the wind direction, her route and the surrounding environment.  On returning to her studio, Libby uses these sources as a launching point for her paintings and printmaking. Libby’s process makes for works that are spontaneous, full of energy, movement and light.

When not exploring Perthshire’s stunning landscape, Libby likes to spend time in Aberfeldy and its surroundings. She says, “One of my favourite places for tea or coffee and a nice lunch is the Aberfeldy Watermill — followed by a browse round the bookshop. For historic sites it has to be Camserney / Dull / Fearnan. It's an area that my husband knows very well and it is jam packed with history that he tells me about.”

In winter Libby also loves cross country skiing at Griffin wood above Aberfeldy. There are so many places within Perthshire to visit, investigate and explore,” she says. “And it's all a hop skip and jump from where I am based.”

Libby’s products on Perthshire Artisans include original artworks in all sizes, handmade sketchbooks, unique one off prints and limited edition cards.

Derek Allan

Derek is a silversmith and jeweller based in Pitlochry who enjoys working with a number of mediums in various forms, including silver, copper and also precious and semi-precious stones. He is strongly inspired by Scottish and Scandinavian history and culture and incorporates these into the shapes and styles of his work. 

Derek says he can ‘take his pick’ of historical sites in Perthshire, and sites the Pictish fort and steading in Ailean Forest as one source of inspiration. He has also used the crannog on Loch Tay, and indeed named one of his pieces after it.

Many of Derek's pieces start off as an idea based on some physical cultural element, which he then interprets on paper — still the design may change and develop throughout the creating process. Working mainly in silver and copper, Derek also enjoys working with bronze due to the lovely lustre and almost silk like texture once polished. 

Derek loves mixing materials in his designs to create different effects, including painted elements added to his silver designs and working with resin enable an experimental approach to developing new work. He can often been found at local events: “Blair Horse Trails and Pitlochry Games,” he specifies. Loch Tummel is his favourite day out. 

A variety of Derek’s jewellery is available on Perthshire Artisans, but he also likes working with customers to realise their own ideas and designing a piece of jewellery unique to them.

Jenny Charles

As a ceramicist, Jenny loves the earthy feeling of working the clay in her hands and predominantly works with rolled slabs to create her pieces. She is equally happy throwing on the wheel for a fast and immediate result or working in a slower and contemplative way when coiling damp clay.

Jenny has been exploring the joys of ceramics for over 30 years and now works from her garden based studio near Blair Atholl in Highland Perthshire. She develops her designs via many methods. Time is invested thinking through and researching an idea, sometimes sketching and more often, instinctively playing with the clay, until a clear way of working unfolds.

Jenny enjoys getting out and about her local area, and has a number of favourite walks and locations. “The Hercules Gardens at Blair Atholl Castle is inspiring,” she says. “The Whin also is beautiful and calming, as is the Cathedral at Dunkeld and a walk along the river to the Birnam oak. And not forgetting the Birks at Aberfeldy — the walk and the cinema!”

Jenny’s pieces purposefully convey a simple and authentic design, always original and often with a nod to the past. Her joyful work is both tactile and desirable, and will delight any ceramic lover, whilst providing a useful functional purpose. 

By individually hand-building each piece and often combining different techniques, Jenny truly connects with every creation. Additional individual characteristics can be added through either hand painting or glazing in the decorative phase of the making process. When she needs a break or a pick-me-up her choice unequivocal: “Best coffee in Pitlochry is found at Escape Route,” she reveals. 

Jenny’s ‘Kiss’ range is currently featured on Perthshire Artisans — inspired by lockdown, when she realised she missed kissing and even seeing the lips of friends.

Stewart Graham 

Stewart is a landscape painter, working in acrylic, oils and more recently the exciting world of digital illustration. Having worked many years in the computer gaming industry, Stewart was well equipped to turn his skills towards creating original digital art, inspired by the natural world he enjoys on a daily basis from his Alyth-based home studio. 

Stewart’s work is an invigorating modern interpretation of the traditional landscape with a hint of the magical. With a preference for painting busy, textural and structural scenes he is drawn to creating variation in his artwork in light and colour through the many natural features including foliage, trees, rocks and water. 

New ideas are often captured when out for a walk, run or cycle. It’s no surprise that Stewart finds inspiration at the nearby Den o’ Alyth: “For a short walk and visual inspiration,” he says. He also mentions “running around Backwater reservoir, the forests and walks around Dunkeld and Pitlochry, the mountains and Munros to climb and Glamis Castle and village.” More daringly, he enjoys zip lining in Killiecrankie “with the kids.”

Stewart finds that digital art encourages experimentation with new styles, processes and skills. With his computer gaming background he is used to using a screen as a canvas. Working on a large graphics tablet, the process is much like traditional painting. The advantages include an almost infinite range or colour and a huge variety of brushes and textures available at the touch of a button. The undo button is a handy feature too! 

Stewart’s unique digital artworks are available in the form of standard and giclee prints, and he also uses them to recreate the scene using traditional oil painting techniques.

Other Perthshire Artisans mention as inspirations seeing deer in their garden (Shonagh Moore), the raw power of storms (Gillian Hunt), being able to access beautiful walks from their doorsteps (Katy Galbraith and Cornelia Weinmann) the Deil’s Cauldrom walk in Comrie (Kate McLaughlin and Mairi Urquhart), shopping in Perth (Anna Malyon) and Blairgowrie’s Cateran Trail (Kerstin Robb).

Perthshire Artisans project coordinator Caron Ironside adds: “There's so many fabulous places to go, it's hard to pin point just one or two. I loved discovering the Corbenic Poetry Path at Trochry near Dunkeld, a visit to Dunkeld itself and Comrie and Aberfeldy are always a treat for the independent shops and galleries, and Stanley Mills is a draw for the textile heritage. I’m also so grateful for our performing venues, including Perth Theatre, Perth Concert Hall, Birnam Arts and the Pitlochry Theatre.” 

Chatting to the Artisans it’s clear that Perthshire abounds with amazing and inspirational places to visit! There’s no doubt that creativity, enterprise, skill and vision are fostered and showcased in this part of rural Scotland too — as it is across the country.