A sketchbook, not a collection.

I live in Edinburgh and draw in the margins of ordinary days. I am not trying to visit every celebrated viewpoint. Familiar places are more useful to me because I notice when something small changes: a new gap in the branches, a reflection in a window, a low cloud sitting where yesterday’s light had been.

The atlas began as an excuse to use a half-empty sketchbook. I had been saving its nicer pages for a worthy subject, which meant they stayed blank. I made a rule that each drawing had to take less time than a cup of tea needed to cool. The rule removed most of the ceremony and a surprising amount of hesitation.

My kit is a soft pencil, a blue pencil, a folded scrap of paper for blending, and a clip to stop the pages lifting in the wind. I date a study only when the date helps me remember a walk. I am more interested in the habit of looking than in building an impeccable archive.

At home I read travel essays, grow mint on a crowded sill, and make soups that improve on the second day. Drawing shares that patient rhythm. Some pages never become anything more than a pale shape and a note about cold fingers. They still remind me that I stopped, looked up, and gave the afternoon a little attention.