"Mud- glorious mud!"

“I want to paint in mud!”
Within seconds of entering my studio Robyn,age 5 and Ruaridh, age 8 were on the floor happily painting with mud.
Our cat, Taz walked across the paper and the next thing he is incorporated into the painting too.
Their mother Anna Divers from Polmont has taken part in Open Studios before but she has had a year off because she as been taking a teaching qualification.

Today sees the start of our 5th annual Forth Valley Open Studios with 140 artists throughout central Scotland taking part. The day kicked off with brilliant sunshine and we thought summer had come. By this afternoon we had torrential rain.


Now I had everything set up for mud paintings out of doors! I did not have a contingency plan for inside so it was a case of making a few rapid adjustments to creates more space to accommodate the children and the mud.


The children were not the only ones fascinated by mud paintings. My first set of visitors said the reason they came was for the mud. They said it intrigued them but declined to have a go.

Tomorrow my good friend Libby will be coming over to give a hand and she is adept at persuading adults to unleash their creativity.

Hopefully by the end of Open Studios I will have introduced a whole new raft of people to the joys of painting with mud.