Here in Scotland, we are extremely lucky to have a healthy population of otters. Even here in Perth you can see otters swimming in the river in the middle of the city as you cross the bridge over the Tay. I had a wonderful moment up at the Hermitage in Dunkeld one very snowy winter. The was still a lot of snow lying despite it being the month of March. My friend and I heard two otters calling to one another on the bank of the river Braan - and because of the snow, we were able to see them very easily. We watched them for ages, tumbling along the river bank.
So of course, otters have made their way into my art work. The first linocut I produced was the one above. It was directly inspired by an otter I saw swimming while crossing Smeaton Bridge in Perth on the way home from work one day. What a perfect commute home!
This is the second linocut of an otter I produced. It is one of 12 linocuts I created to represent each month of the year. This is August, and it is titled 'Otters hunt fish during the long evenings in August'. I love their lithe bodies, they are extraordinary animals.
As featured in last week's blog post, this is a drawing of a family of Ecuadorian Giant Otters. It recalls one of the most special moments of my life when I was canoeing up a remote tributary in the rainforest and suddenly, a family of 4 giant otters popped up. They are surprisingly large, and very boisterous, they would have had no problem tipping us from our canoe! But they just swam around and under us, investigating what we were doing.
Finally, to finish off this blog post, I wanted to share this amazing little film taken by my friend Fran, of a mother and daughter otter up in Shetland - absolutely beautiful!