Anna Wilson Studio

A struggle day… when my ‘work’ felt hard, so to escape it I was just mindlessly scrolling… weird how that felt more legit than just giving up completely on my work and doing something different instead. Eventually, I gave myself permission not to ‘work’ and just play with my paint instead and made these two images inspired by beautiful Tallinn! One celebrating ‘home’ in Tallinn in the summer (from my recent trip) and the other ‘home’ there in the winter… two sides to the same place. Crappy day recovered. Phew.

I am in a city that I fell in love with when I spent a month here, quite a while ago now, in the winter. It snowed heavily almost every single day of that month. And I drew outside almost every single day. My ink crystallised as it hit the paper, and the water in my water brushes froze. I made some of my favourite images during that trip… and so, when I needed to get away for a little solo getaway, I decided to come back here in June.

And oh my goodness it is different! Where there was pancake ice, there is now a sea that people are swimming in. And instead of icicles falling off rooftops there are baby seagulls. And drawing is an absolute relaxing delight. The sun has been out keeping me warm and there are so many places to sit. The buildings are as gorgeous as I remember and they are now nestled amongst trees.

So here are a few sketchbook pages - trying to do one or two of these graphic novel style pages a day. I have brought my colour but for some reason have been loving just using a graphite pencil and a pink marker, and that’s it. I haven’t worked this simply for ages and it is fun so I think I’ll keep going like this for a bit.

Swipe through for the details! Because there is so much wonder in this place.

Back at the desk for the first day of 2025 after a truly wonderfully relaxing break. I feel like I’ve finally learned how to actually switch off from my work. Maybe it was how lucky I was to spend a couple of weeks with family in beautiful Cornwall where I mostly knitted with a fabulous knitting companion, ran along the coast path with Dave and played games with cousins by a fire while it mizzled away outside. Or maybe it’s because I’ve learned some things over the years since I got some success as an illustrator.

Turning something I just loved doing into a job has been the most amazing thing I’ve ever really done. I feel so grateful for it always and it still brings me so much joy. But it is also an endless hustle - an endless wondering if the work will keep coming, a stress that I need to make more and it needs to be better. And with that a feeling that I need to be more and better.

But over a bit of a quieter last six months work wise I feel like I’ve recovered a bit of myself that isn’t the illustrator. And with it have learned how to actually give myself a break! And so this drawing is a way to get back familiar with my paint and also a celebration of my break! Of cosy companionship and the joy of crafting and just taking time to hang out by a fire while the weather twirls and whirls around outside.

I’ve been drawing small! On the backs of lovely paper that I made bits of picture book work on. And it’s been so good. I really like working in sketchbooks, but it’s been super nice to work on really finighable tiny things that are objects in themselves. It feels so unintimidating because they’re so small - a real bite size thing to sit and do. They are quick - good in the cold - and they feel really freeing because I can just do another one if it doesn’t work out. And I thought I’d share a heap of them with you here (there are also more!)

I love the first drawing. It is of the wonderful building that houses the beloved milkman coffee shop in Cockburn Street in Edinburgh. I drew it on a day I was really stressed and although it is small it actually took me a while, but somehow it didn’t feel like it got tight. Even though I was slow and steady about it, the tininess seemed to keep the work free. The others are all bigger… and are less lovely… so I think looking at them all together has made me want to go and rip up that next big sheet of paper into even smaller bits and make some more!

It feels like a superpower, making a big stone city filled with people into teeny tiny pieces. A new love.

I’m back at the desk this week for the first time in a long while! I’ve been having a most incredible break wandering Scotland, Norway and Sweden with my parents after they made the long trek from Australia to visit me and it was truly so joyous. I hardly drew at all while travelling (very unusual) and I feel rusty and a little awkward as I sit back down again to recalibrate and get art making again.
One of the most delightful things about our entire trip was the autumn. It truly glowed. And in the Stockholm archipelago, amongst the colourful houses perched on granite rocks by the sea, were hundreds of gardens filled with apple trees… dripping with fruit. I wanted so badly to have such a garden, with a tree dense in apples, and a beautiful kitchen to cook them up in. Apple pie is one of my all-time favourite foods and so to get going again I decided to make a drawing of an imagined kitchen with a rich autumnal garden, filled with a bounty of food, out the window.

I don’t love the drawing, but I loved imagining myself there and it was a nice way to get drawing again back at my way too crowded table! At the end are a few little photos of the autumn-ness of the Sweden’s beautiful cottage gardens.

I’ve so enjoyed working in panels lately. Somehow the page seems to immediately hold a story when I put a heap of small images on the same page even when I don’t plan it. It also feels like such a lovely way to capture the feeling of a particular place… more like how it is to be somewhere really, when your eye zooms in and out and looks all around and up and down all in a second.

I started drawing this yesterday with , and as usual, talked too much so only drew two of the panels. So I went back this morning and did the rest. It was such a lovely way to start Saturday, in the buzz of the tourists all discovering this gem of a street in Edinburgh’s old town. I think I could fill an entire sketchbook with tiny drawings in panels like this, just of this street and still never tire of all its wonders. Edinburgh is such a gem of a city to draw.

Swipe through to see my brown tape… and a bit of it in progress from my view sitting on one of the filthy worn down stone steps.

I had such a lovely morning yesterday drawing at the beautiful North Berwick with . I did something I hadn’t done for ages and used a really big sketchbook - - but divided into little panels using some brown tape (last pic). I thought I’d easily fill in all six panels while we sat there for the morning but I only managed the bottom three. We sat with a super complicated view with so many boats and poles that it took me forever - I was also talking and I’m absolutely useless at drawing and talking.

So I did the top three at home from pics I had of North Berwick. I really like the page. Particularly the little pic I did right at the end that only took a few minutes - the tiny one in the top left.

Spending the morning listening to the chit chat of people wandering past. Holiday makers and locals mixing with the sounds of the sea and the birds and moments of rain, made me want to up and move back to the sea. Such a lovely start to my week.

Back at the desk and trying to get going again after a ridiculously lovely break down in Cornwall. It’s always a little hard to let go of having the sea a few steps away and harder still to sit down at a desk for lots of the day but I am so lucky that when I sit down this is what I get to do!
Back at working on my story with Franki and Freidrich (see earlier posts of girl and dog) and making them some friends… I am imagining a much bigger dog and another small girl and toying with using these two. I keep naming them and then they don’t feel quite right (name suggestions welcome). Maybe that’s because they’re not quite the right pair. I’m not sure. I do like their workshop though… we shall see what I can make them do.