Above: Birch Trees. Fairhill 2. 18th April. Charcoal on A4 paper. Rose Strang 2026
A gaggle of geese greeted us today at Fairhill, one chased after me for a while with its neck extended and tongue out, hissing like a wild cat. The ground was covered in rook-droppings from the Scots Pines above us. The whole energy had picked up and as soon as we walked into the trees I could feel the humidity and scents of late spring rising up from the grass. All of nature waking up.
(I’m taking notes and writing a blog post each time I go to Fairhill, which is a piece of forest land owned and managed by the Life Science Centre, which is informed by Goethean science and philosophy. My trips to Fairhill are my record of a Goethean approach to observation – bringing a deeper awareness and understanding of nature. Sketching is an important part).
The resident hare greeted us at the edge of the birch forest and bounded off, its black ear tips visible every so often. We went back to the same spot. I looked for my tightly coiled fern from last time, but there were so many, after just one week, all popping up their spiral heads in varying states of unfurling.
I sketched a couple of those and the birch forest in pencil first. Then three sketches in charcoal.
It sounds obvious, but I was really aware of the fact that efforts to draw or sketch trees weren’t working, what worked was drawing the patches of light, pattern and shade. This is drawing level 1, but it’s interesting how I forget! I wanted to sketch birch leaves, but two hours had past, it was 5pm and time to head to Gifford.
To say it was a beautiful day is inadequate. I felt like I’d been dropped into a film about a rural idyll, one that would win awards for amazing cinematogrpahy. but better because of all the scents. Adam recorded the sounds of Fairhill as we came in – crawing rooks, swaying trees, hissing geese. It will make a great soundtrack for an exhibition at some point maybe.
Gifford was a continuation of the being-dropped-in-a-film mood, with 1940s music playing, old crackelure-d paintings and super-polite friendly staff who asked us how our day had been and plied us with afternoon scones.
I meant to write more about Goblin Ha‘ near Gifford. I’ll do that next time.
At the moment I’m building up feature pages about our Traces project. I’m keeping it password protected while we develop the project and organise a private screening of the film and showing of paintings. If you’re interested in learning more, here’s a link to an essay about the ideas behind the Traces project, and here’s an interview with me, about Traces, by art collector and author Robert de Mey.
If these resonate with you, and you’d like get in touch about it, contact me and I’ll send a link to the password protected page. rose.strang@gmail.com
Rose Strang Artworks 