Lindsey Gallacher

I've recently started using stratchboards to create artwork and have found them to be excellent for my way of working. I imagine after a while it would be easy to develop some kind of hand strain due to the method of using the tools, it would be good to know how to counteract this kind of problem. The top picture is of my Great Granny picking Groatie buckies after church at the harbour in John O'Groats in Caithness. The second is of an old Caithness croft with flagstone fencing in the foreground.

 I have been experimenting with the concept of using lichen covered stone.  It has been noted that lichen is a living thing and I've contemplated the problem with using it for my work for a while now.  This particular lichen is actually the very common Crabs Eye Lichen (Ochrolechia parella) It covers every piece of stone that exists in Caithness, there is as much of this lichen as heather on the hills or moss on the ground.  To protect the lichen from flaking off I have chosen to put a thin coating of resin over it and this has turned the white an interesting orangey yellow. What is of importance to me is that I don't go removing vital stones from the walls that surround the fields.  These walls have been here for hundreds of years, and the more I look at them the more I marvel at the shear scale of man power that went into building them. Hard graft and skill.  The walls have survived hundreds of years of powerful storms and sadly many of them are slowly leaning and subsequ