Mixing it up, Ruth Nicol-style

I'll be writing about a new body of work by Edinburgh-based Ruth Nicol in this Saturday's Herald.
The kids were off school today for a local holiday so I took them through to Ruth's studio to see her work for a new touring exhibition called Three Rivers Meet.
She has been inspired by Alexander Moffat's great Poets Pub painting, which depicts a fictional gathering of seven great Scots poets of the 20th century; Hugh MacDiarmid, Edwin Morgan, Norman MacCraig, Sorley Maclean, George MacKay Brown, Robert Garioch and Ian Crichton Smith.
As a graduate of Scottish and English Literature and a lover of poetry and art, this is right up my street.
I first met Ruth in 2010 when she'd newly graduated from Edinburgh College of Art and was taking part in an exhibition called The River Runs Through It. I helped to organise this show at Kelvingrove in Glasgow with artist (and Blipper) Charles Jamieson.
It was a fundraising exhibition - with a loose theme around the River Clyde - for the Riverside Museum.
Never one to do things by half, Ruth had had a baby just before her degree show. Wee Charlotte was there today, painting away, just like mama!
This shows Ruth showing my two the magical alchemy of festering acrylic paint...