Spring Fling day 1

1. Spring Fling is one of my favourite things. It combines lots of stuff I really like. It's an artists studio open weekend so you get to travel all over this amazing area stopping in at over 100 studios which are open for 3 days. You can see artwork, meet the people who create it and you can see in people's houses and sometimes there's homebaking. What could be better?

2. We have a breakfast planning session and pick where we are going to go. We start with the new Wasps studios as they are just across the road. One of my favourite artists, Cressa, is now based here.

3. And on we go, checking out Auchencairn as a possible destination, being relieved by the wicker man's home made lemonade and confused by the pink house. We stop in at Levi Marshall's studio to make pots. We did this last year and fancy a second go. This is such a lovely set up - his studio is next to his stunning newly built house that sits in a field down a track. For spring fling there are pots ready for us to glaze which are then fired using the raku technique while you wait. This is Levi lifting out the pot I have painted from the kiln to the sawdust.

4. And on and on we go. We find Rockcliffe which is so, so beautiful and we land in Castle Douglas around 5pm. The first studio we go to is Kim Ayres, a photographer who has assigned himself a project to create an album for the weekend. He asks you to tell him one thing that Spring Fling means to you and then he takes your portrait. I love our photo. I love it. We cross the street and Colin buys a rather beautiful botanical photograph.

5. Fish and chips on a bench by the sea.