@jennycapondraws
Illustrator & graphic recorder based in Edinburgh. Listening, distilling & drawing to make complex information accessible with visuals. #visualthinking Also here for cats, maps, birds & kids books, poetry, nature, the sea. www.jennycapondraws.com
Signpost on rough hill ground with view of rolling fields
Can you help Walkhighlands?
Walkhighlands website & app are free for everyone and anyone to use.
We don't charge as we want to provide a service accessible to all, including those who cannot afford to pay. We are now a not-for-profit set up to serve walkers.
www.walkhighlands.co.uk/donate.shtml
Thanks for having me along to record this important conversation, it was a really inspiring & thought provoking morning.
What an inspiring day! Alongside SIAA, we held an event in Edinburgh advocating for collective advocacy. Attendees, many with lived experience, connected with each other & shared their asks of the government, directly with the Minister for Social Care, @ThomasCArthur.bsky.social
A photo (thanks Lauren Bloor for this image) showing a hand - my hand! - holding a pen, finishing the lettering 'Bridging the communication gap.' This image was taken at the Design Hopes symposium in Glasgow April 2025, where I visual minuted the event alongside my long-term collaborator and good friend the artist Claire Stringer. It was about collaborative work between designers, researchers and medics to develop sustainable, earth friendly medical products, and was utterly fascinating. www.designhopes.org
Happy new year!🌱🌝🍀
I am looking forward to another year of listening, learning, distilling and drawing.
Get in touch if you'd like to know more about how you could use #graphicrecording or #visualminutes to involve more voices in research, and share complex information in an accessible way.
"We are starting from a place of entanglement"
I recently revisted these conversations illustrated at the Sefari Gateway ideas hub in Edinburgh Botanic Gardens in 2023. A session full of gems of wisdom about collaborating towards shared environmental aims in the context of a complex social system.
POEM A kite in the shape of a map floats over the land it depicts, but at night no one sees its roads at the end of which a child feels his hand tugged upward, disappearing in salutations.
Bill Knott
There were some truly inspiring stories from dedicated people across the country, committed to improving lives in their local areas.
You can learn more about the Parliament's 25th anniversary Regional visits here:
www.parliament.scot/get-involved...
Visual notes from the Cumberland & Carbrain visit
Looking at the visual notes with the PO, image credit Andrew Cowan / Scottish Parliament, Communities Conference 2025.
Conference delegates looking at the visual notes at the Scottish Parliament, Communities Conference 2025.
Visual notes from the Lothian Regional visit
It was a huge privilege to create 8 visual notes capturing insights from The Presiding Officers @parliament.scot 25th anniversary regional visits to hear from communities across Scotland last year.
They will be up in the public area of the parliament over the summer, do go in and see them!
Last week we were delighted to collaborate with the Ripple on an exhibition at @scotparl.bsky.social titled ‘The Ripple Project: Manifesting the Future of Lochend, Restalrig and Craigentinny’ ✨
UK Illustrators, pls share: The AOI (Association of Illustrators) is conducting a survey on AI and copyright to hopefully fight back against the ridiculous decision by the UK govt to plow ahead regardless.
You don't have to be an AOI member to have your say! www.surveymonkey.com/r/ai_consult...
Pink sunrise over beach
A red moon over the sea in Portobello, Edinburgh yesterday evening.
A red moon over Portobello beach last night, and a pink sky this morning. Skies to lift tired eyes. #lookup
Happy #WinterSolstice! The days in the north will get longer from here on in 🥳
Orwell wrote: So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information....
Graphic summary of climate change event
The ‘climate change and mental ill health’ event held in @uofglasgow.bsky.social last week has a fascinating graphic summary by @jennycapondraws.bsky.social. 40 invited delegates made this a brilliant start to abmuch needed national conversation! @drcenz.bsky.social
This title if the comic is ‘Googling Stuff…’ The comic shows two columns: on the left is “Then” showing search results with one thing listed as “the thing you want” On the right column is ‘Now’ - also showing search results but in this case it’s a whole bunch of stuff you don’t need: AI TAKING A WILD STAB AT IT WITH SOME BLATANT MISINFORMATION SPONSORED RESULT SPONSORED RESULT SPONSORED RESULT SPONSORED RESULT PEOPLE ALSO ASK VIEW PRODUCTS And then right at the bottom just off screen is ‘the thing you want’
Googling Stuff: Then v Now.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Googly eyes have been added to the cover artwork
Reader, I googlied him
'When designed, managed and staffed with intention (libraries) are spaces where people can come together, bridge differences of race, income and belief, and engage with each other and the community. Great piece by @shamike2009.bsky.social
A very small blade of grass covered in frost on a dark shadowy hazy background
Ice fairy 🏔️❄️🧊✨
#macro #nature #photography
Scribbling and editing today thinking of all the films about writers I've watched and how none of them eat chips
Image showing drawings from a talk by spoken word artist / writer Byron Vincent, exploring the impact of unseen neurodiversity in poverty. You can find some of his podcasts on social justice here: https://www.byronvincent.com/new-page he was a brilliant wordsmith.
I've been working on a piece from Scotland's community justice organisation Sacro's 2nd conference. This is from their first in 2022, when poet / DJ Byron Vincent talked powerfully about the impact of growing up as a neurodivergent kid in poverty. Stories matter.
Link to his podcasts in alt text.
How to Avoid Mixing Your Metaphors It’s not rocket surgery. First, get all your ducks on the same page. After all, you can’t make an omelette without breaking stride. Be sure to watch what you write with a fine-tuned comb. Check and re-check until the cows turn blue. It’s as easy as falling off a piece of cake. Don’t worry about opening up a whole hill of beans: you can always burn that bridge when you come to it, if you follow where I’m coming from. Concentrate! Keep your door closed and your enemies closer. Finally, don’t take the moral high horse: if the metaphor fits, walk a mile in it. Brian Bilston
Today’s poem is called ‘How to Avoid Mixing Your Metaphors’.
Happy stripy cat with eyes shut under a blanket having chin stroked and looking extremely pleased with herself. It is not really now possible for anyone else to sit on the sofa.
Happy saturday #caturday
This is a fascinating read, thanks.
I read this weeks ago and can't get it out of my head. A must-read (& share) for anyone serious about systems change.
"Complexity approaches generally begin with the assumption that it is not possible to direct a living system along a linear pathway no matter how desirable the potential outcomes."
Portobello beach. Edinburgh
Portobello beach, Edinburgh
Icy bright 🩵❄️🌅
Drawing of a pigeon and a starling, overlaying vintage OS maps of Portobello beach, Edinburgh.
You distract them, I'll get the chips.
Visual minutes - words and pictures - capturing the ideas from community participants in a science & environmental project run by Glasgow University & Glasgow Science Centre. Link to research here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/education/research/fromlocaltoglobalresearch/researchprojects/gallant/
We need to join up the dots. I'd like to use my skills. I'd like to do more here. We all want to do our bit to save the planet. The thoughts from participants in the Gallant project - a community based collaborative environmental science project in Glasgow. Link to research in alt text.
William Wilson, 1935, "Holyrood in Snow", a pen line on paper artwork showing show on Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags in the distance, with Holyrood Abbey and the Palace in the midground and old tenements in the foreground. The scene is snowy and looks cold and dark. © Estate of William Wilson OBE (1905-1972)
As Edinburgh shivers under a blanket of sleet and snow, and entirely fails to cope with this well forecasted, seasonal weather event, here's a chilly view of "Holyrood in the Snow" by William Wilson from 1935 from the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.
Etymology of the day: to be ‘blowing a hoolie’ (or ‘hooley’) was probably inspired by the Orkney word ‘hoolan’, a howling gale, with a touch of the ‘hooley’ that is a very noisy party thrown in.
