Welcome to my website!
My name is Jenna Martin Leitch and I’m an artist, illustrator and writer from Fife, Scotland.
My work is inspired by the treasures I find, in my everyday life and in the natural world. The joy they bring to me. The “happy” they make me feel.
I collect things; In my pockets, through my eyes, with my mind, and in my heart. The things we have lost. The things we have found. The sum of our parts. Through written word, drawn line, and painted hue; I make sure the magic is remembered and the JOY I FEEL is paid forward.
I’ve noticed daisies this week. Dotted within our lawn, and otherwise, in the world I’ve wandered this last week.
Tiny sunshines with petals surrounding. They’re tiny joys to me.
Today would have been my Mum’s 83rd birthday. The Spring Equinox, and also, the International Day of Happiness coincide with her day.
I always think this is such a lovely twist of fate. A day filled with increasing light, and in theory, increasing happy. Just as she would want her birthday to be.
I started my day very bright and early, heading out to the gym by half past 5. Home for half past 6, I was very aware of birds, in abundance.
I saw two wrens, song thrushes, two male chaffinches in flurry of fight, two robins dancing on pavement. A rook, carrying sizable twig, through woodland up to a nest in progress. I saw blackbirds, and heard them. Multitudes and rich in song. So many birds.
Then up to work, where I looked after the animals of Dundee and surrounding areas in my care.
Now home, and cat on my knee, having enjoyed my dinner and safe and sound within our home.
I spoke to a friend today, one of my bestest. She spoke of the humble things which she is so very grateful for. Simple pleasures that make our world the happiest we could ever imagine. Today has been filled with mine.
My Mum would only ever hope for that. For my brother and I, my little family, to be happy.
It’s a gift in itself, and should she still be here in this world, she would be delighted.
Ever onwards.
Jen x
#JOYimprinted
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
I saw a skylark today. Flitting, as they do, so brightly and vivaciously above ploughed field.
The sun still low, dazzling my eyes to the right, as this tiny bird, dazzled them also, to my left.
A flurry of twinkling wing. Fast and not so much furious, but joyous, it danced in vertical steadfast, gently lifting as if by magic.
Momentary so it was, I thought of Dad. How I would have told him I’d seen it. Had he still been here.
Listening to a book at same time, audiobooks part salvation, “The Madness of Grief” by the Reverend Richard Coles. A book, I stumbled upon, and yet, his words, although such a different personal situation, remarkably, and comfortingly, recounting so much of what I have been through, and indeed, am going through.
I painted this skylark, for my Dad, upon the occasion of his 81st birthday. Upon a Lomond Hills skyline twig, the lyric of Ella Fitzgerald. A singer we both adored. Words which seemed to fitting.
Gold. Twinkling, shining, just as today’s skylark did. Just as his lovely face did also.
✨
#JOYimprinted
#skylark
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#EllaFitzgerald
#willothewisp
@revrichardcoles
I detail the plumage, not so much in true detailed drawing, but in essence and in wonder.
Swoops, swirls, dots and lines. Rapturous in colour and feathers in pattern.
Flight astounds me… the taking off, and the air borne onwards.
The physics of flight are there, known, and detailed. As those of a giant sailing ship are also. Tonnes of metal. Afloat on giant oceans. Whole other worlds beneath the waves. Mountains and valleys. Trenches where the light doesn’t reach.
Magnificent magnitude. Blows my mind, just as those miniature birds on wing do also.
To fly. As to float. When you let your mind rest on these facts of science, they can be sent a-whirl.
Science or magic? Whichever way you choose to see the world… or indeed BOTH… like I. Double the wonder. Double the joy.
Onwards and always.
Jenna x
#JOYimprinted
#designdetails
#plumageofbirds
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#marchmeetthemaker
Whilst looking through memories of when the girls were tiny yesterday with a friend, I found this image, with a house martin on blue. Sky surrounded and fast in flight to sunshine.
I had forgotten of it. Then, upon finding, it all came flooding back. The way the girls played around me in wellies and shorts and t-shirts that day. Tractors and cuppa’s. Tiny people bringing joy wherever they existed on any given day.
I loved being a Mum of tiny people. Now, near teenagers, motherhood is very different. Equally as wonderful, but challenging, in very different ways.
I miss those days so much. Life was so otherly then. I felt youthful and untarnished by grief and my own increasing age, and all that goes with it.
A House Martin. A Martin, like me.
Bright bellied, glistening eyed and on blue. In flight. Unstoppable and joyous.
One day, perhaps I will feel as this bird must have in flight that day, again. One day.
I’m so glad I found this photo. Remembered it so richly. Like a pull back to a previous me, and a previous ‘us’. It’ll all come round again, I’m sure of it.
💙🤍
#housemartin
#JOYimprinted
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
Jackdaws. I bet if you imagine hard enough, you can hear this picture 🤍
One of the best sounds to arrive in my ears. Always a brightener.
#jackdaws
I’ll be honest, I think my work is for whoever feels a connection to it.
Oftentimes, a someone will pop by my display, and they will respond to my work, quite viscerally.
They’ll well up. Their body will respond with an emotion they didn’t quite expect, but were unable to keep within.
Joy, tears, wonder, warmth, a memory. All of this is conjured from what I create.
I write too, and my words, in written form, have made people feel something, so magical. So deeply. Sometimes I get goosebumps on their behalf.
People who, through nature, hope to connect to the world at large, but also, connect to their own inner world. To find place and peace. Quiet in the busy.
Followers and customers have told me, my work helped them to work through tricky times. Grief, loss, periods of upheaval. They were made aware of how my work helped them cope, on whatever level. They connected to my words and my why.
And so I continue….
Ever onwards.
Jen x
#JOYimprinted
#whoisitfor
#marchmeetthemaker
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
This one won’t let me ever forget that I’m her Mum. That she is hungry (always). That I must feed her (stat). Also, most importantly, that I am her favourite human.
Art Cat extraordinaire. My sidekick and cat sized stalker.
She sat on the table, beside me on my bench, or nearby the whole time I was painting yesterday. Nice to feel loved… (even if it was primarily because she fancied a wee snack!)
💛
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Cat Mums of this world.
Jen x
#JOYimprinted
#icantkeepthismoment
#catmum
#albathepinknosedkitten
#artcat
✨“I CAN’T KEEP THIS MOMENT…” ✨
Two House Martins… swirl dancing together, in pirouetting spiral, skybound, above a hilltop skyline twig, Arthur’s Seat in silhouette. Lichen encrusted, and words inscribed.
My Ode to the year of 2025.
In sunshine yellow, lyric of the glorious @pictishtrail , from ‘Hold It’, the song which got me through the year of 2025. Like gentle lullaby, and calming wonder. Johnny’s lyrics have graced my life for so long. Last year more than most.
So often last year, I thought of this phrase. I felt like time was running out. Sensed it, knew it, was faced with it. I could feel myself wanting to savour my dad’s all. The joy, and the love felt, whilst being a daughter. The way he smiled. Closed mouth, quietly. His presence like comfort to me. To many.
I always will be, in some ways, but I won’t feel it first hand, ever again. He’s now with my Mum. Flying somewhere else.
The Martin’s, a phrase I get spoken to me, as if a collective noun. These House Martins, grace the skyline which occupied most of my last year. The one I gazed upon the most. Driving back and forth along the Edinburgh bypass to Portobello. To Leith. To Tranent.
Then last weekend. There it was, in full effect, from Burntisland in Fife. Arthur’s Seat. The long extinct volcano of Edinburgh Capital. Always blows my mind.
Two House Martins. Representing my Mum and my Dad. Migratory birds, and always a joy to see. House Martins travel such distance. As my own parents did too.
Finally placed upon paper. They dance and they swirl. Like paint brush on paper.
#icantkeepthemoment
#blink
#JOYimprinted
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
@marchmeetthemaker and today’s prompt is “Currently working on”…
I’ll be honest, I have been deeply within grief these last months… so, predominantly I have been working on me. Getting through my days, whilst looking for the tiny joys.
I’ve been working on every version of me. Jenna, the Mum, the wife, the Writer, the Artist, the Runner, the Vet Nurse… the daughter.
There have been soooo many things to navigate, that, ultimately something has had to give.
I’ve found writing extremely cathartic. I’ve needed it. To write down the memories, the snippets of information, the facts I’ve been told since his passing. To fashion into written word, my feelings. The emotions which have come up, and the emotions I’ve struggled to tell to others.
I wrote my dad’s eulogy. It was rich and full, and told of his life. Planned his funeral. Compiled a booklet for his service, filled to the brim with some of my favourite photos, to further show his wonderful life.
I’ve worked on my home. I’ve worked on my health and my fitness. Addressed certain factors that will help me move forward. With vitality and with kindness.
Kindness rubs off, on not just myself, but in turn to those I love. This is important to me. I want to be better. At just being me.
My desk is cleared, and I feel ready to draw and paint again. The ideas that have been written in my notebook, and stored, until now, in my imagination, feel ready to be placed on paper.
This prompt felt big to me…. Facing up to it all. No glossing. Just truth.
I am currently working on me. I am currently working on the safe passage through grief… I think, mostly, I’m doing ok. Then, some days, I hit the rocks. The light doesn’t shine. Such is life.
The lighthouse is always there. Somewhere… though. I feel it. I feel him guiding.
🤍
Jen x
#MarchMeetTheMaker
#currentlyworkingon
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
Meanderings and emotions. The creation of joy!
Drawing and painting. The writing down of words. Phrases complete or offering sufficient in explanation… as to my why. My wherefore.
The art I create acts as cathartic resolution. A coming to terms, and a therapy of sorts. Time taken to compile. A richness. To be seen. To be followed. To be witnessed.
A path travelled by line on paper. Made visible… and made told. Our histories and our lives collide. In a gentle enrapture. Like a warmth, left where we once were. For someone else to arrive, and know that gentleness exists or existed there once.
With the twists and turns of life, as inspiration. I marry my findings within my days, with my noticings from the world around me. In a palette, mixed with water, and emotion, my stories are told.
As if to lay bare, as if to find substance to grasp onto. Talisman and totem, both. Reminders.
My JOY… imprinted like a fingerprint on surface. Dusted. Made visible.
I feel like my ‘why’ is evident in all I do.
I hope you feel it too.
Jenna ✨
#marchmeetthemaker
#mywhy
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
Found this magical little blue feather nestled in the grass on a run the other day. I stowed it safely in the back of my phone, to keep it safe and sound, until today.
Feather of a bluetit I would guess. Rich in tone, a subtle colour of sea and Scottishness, is how it feels to me.
The Haar, the way, sometimes, the sea clings to the sky, not wanting to let go. They become one and the same.
Encased within one another. Mirroring, and Misty. Funny how such imaginings should be placed just within a tone… a hue. I’ll capture it in paint.
I went a run this morning and then walked the way home with Katie and Mabel. A donder, where I was able to get things out. It was lovely. The gentle conversation of friendship, and friend-pup. Much needed.
Home, to a gorgeous and wonderful conversation with my father’s cousin Ted.
A man I have never spoken to, having never met him, we have got back in touch, due to my father’s sad passing. They were raised together from a young age, living side by side as if brothers. A conversation of near an hour and a half. I loved it… and didn’t want it to end…
Then upstairs, to tidy my studio. I now have desk space, and what a feeling like breath itself it feels. S P A C E !!!
As I whispered, many a time last year… “making space so the light can get in…” Surely, today has been just that. In so many ways.
Ticking things off that have played heavy on my mind. Within my heart. Here I am now. Lighter for it.
Ever onwards.
Jen x
✨💙🪶💎☀️💛
#makingspacesothelightcangetin
#bluetitfeather
#scottishartist
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
My name is Jenna Martin Leitch. I am a nature artist from Fife, Scotland, working in graphite, Japanese watercolour and printed word. I create works to bring JOY! Birds, nature, flora and fauna, the sea, the sky, sunshine, words and imagery to inspire and to ‘make HAPPY’ in people’s lives... mine included! My aim is to ‘help you find your happy, as I go about my life finding mine!’
I create original artworks, greetings cards, homewares, accessories, artists’ books and written works. Each one is a way for me to pay my joy and my emotions felt, forward. A catharthis and a way to calm, putting pencil to paper works like magic to me.
I am itching to get back into my studio after a period of change and flux in my life. My Dad having passed away in January of this year, I hope to create new pieces, to help tell his story.
All my products are either hand crafted or printed by me. Hand folded, hand drawn hand painted. Or made by Scottish and UK businesses, in as eco friendly a way as possible.
When someone buys an original artworks, whatever the size, pretty much every time I get goosebumps and could cry. It always feels so special, like some kind of synchronicity, a meeting of minds. Of moments.
I only create small batch, and I like to sell in person when I can. Market events,
the ones I’ve managed to do in recent years, have been like a lifeline and a social outing in one!!!!! So good to catch up with all my creative pals once in a while. They’re the best bunch.
🖌️✏️☀️💛
#whatimake
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
@marchmeetthemaker
#marchmeetthemaker
#marchmeetthemaker2026
