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 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
There is a well known phrase, “We all raise these girls…”. We all know it… Speak it and think it.
In fact, and also…. You all raise, and have raised, THIS girl. Still do, in my life and days so far.
All of you. Each of you. Separately and in accumulation, combination.
My Mum, my Grannies, and my children. My aunts and my extended family. My best friends, and team mates. Fellow Vet Nurses and Vets. Acquaintances and colleagues. Fellow football Mums. Fellow Mums in sharing our parenting questions and worries. Nursery days, playgroup, toddlers. Friendships made.
Mums of my friends. Other Mums who have been my ‘also’ and ‘other’ Mums in varying portions of my life. Cried tears on shoulders and spoken of my worries. Gently looked after me, when my own mother was not there, and no longer there, to take on that role.
Fellow artists and creatives. Designer pals and fellow market and exhibition lovelies. My inspirations and my ideas conversers.
Passing conversations. Momentary moments. Compliments and considerations.
The connections I have made, and will continue to make, have made me who I am.
It’s actually mind boggling to consider, just how many wonderful women have touched parts of my life and shaped who I am today.
Just to say… thank you!
Thank you. So much.
Keep being you.
Let us keep raising each other up. Each of us. As we raise one another.
Jen x
#InternationalWomensDay2026
Blue skies. Blue seas. Birds on chimneys. Sea shells. Sand. Beautiful little family. Beautiful day spent.
Sometimes the day chooses you it seems.
Another year round the sun celebrated… quietly, and with a bucket load of hope for the days to come.
Was always going to be a hard one… but the love I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by came up tops.
☀️💎💛
Onwards.
Jen x
Sometimes, the sun makes even the mud look shiny. A Holloway up ahead, like a glowing possibility.
Sometimes the shadow cast makes you look tall and statuesque.
Sometimes you see the first flowering rhododendron, rich in bloom, of your year.
Some days a long run is completed, and for a moment, you feel powerful and strong. A smile spreads and you think, with work, I can continue.
Little wins. Sunshine moments. Tiny details. Noticings.
Life is built on these.
#noticings
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
A photo from a forever ago it feels ☀️
Light streaming on low sun hillside. East Lomond at end of day. Bluster settling, and radiating joy from my tiny family.
Hand in hand in hand… clambering in mutual determination. Hilltop in sight. Summit steps away.
We climb, we do. Upwards. Onwards. Top to vale. Vale to top. And so it shall ever be.
That’s what I enjoy about creative endeavor. Like a hike, with pauses and breaths. Equally there’s exertion and trial.
We reach a cairn and topper most place… only to then see the next. A new horizon. In the form of a new idea. Or a new possibility.
We reach for pen or pencil. Paintbrush or thread. We begin a sketch and an idea is formed in clarity. Sometimes breathtaking. Sometimes with elation.
And so we climb. Always and ever.
So grateful to have my own creativity and a love of the outdoors be married and intertwined… just like my little family are within it all also. With me.
Sunlit hilltop.
Work and life in general is about finding a balance. Figuring what works for you, and running with it. Peaks and troughs occur, imagery feels right, people enjoy the story it speaks to them, or, it doesn’t, and they don’t.
My ‘Odes’ have always been popular. Year upon year, at the beginning of each, I create an ode to the year prior. It speaks of a favourite song, a favourite place, a favourite bird. A hilltop twig in silhouette of lichen moss, bird atop or above, lyrics inscribed. These work. They’re heartfelt and people love them. I don’t make them BECAUSE of that… I make them because I love them. They’re like a diary of my life, and it just makes me so glad that you all seem to feel the same.
I believe in perseverance, and working hard, even in adversity. I know my mindset and my grit, (and talent some may say) will get me through it!
Ever onwards…
Jen x
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#JOYimprinted
#MarchMeetTheMaker
#trialanderror
I always think of my life, as being multi faceted. 💎
The last few years, in particular, I have been sent in so many directions, due to life, and circumstance. To do with those I love, around and about me.
My father moved close in 2023, and sadly passed away in January of this year. Being so much a part of his life, and him mine, has been huge these last years, and even moreso, these last months. I hope to forge forwards with a body of work, of him. About him, and who he represented in my life.
My studio has provided a place of refuge. My writing and my artworks, providing a ‘place to go’ when life got hard. In duality, also, they are a place to help shine light on the love, the wonder, and the many joys in my life too.
My children, our girls, first and foremost also, football parents, we most definitely are, and the sidelines of pitches, are often where I spot some of the loveliest light and birds flying up above. Whilst also enjoying the thrill of a football match, and all the joys that goes with that!
I run, and again, the outdoors is massive in my life for this fact also. The mix of exercise and being outside, such a tonic. Running is medicine to me, and I’m so grateful to have it in my life. Our bodies, and our minds, are wonderfully capable, even when we are working through so much on a personal basis.
My wonderful cats… (have I ever mentioned just how much I love cats???!!! 😅) I even work with them, at my other job, as a part time RVN. A job I adore.
The trinkets and details in my studio, capture fragments of my life. The many facets of who I am, who I was, and who I hope to be… placed on shelves and pinned to the walls. Placed in jars. Rested, beside paint palettes and feathers galore.
I’m lucky. Making space, so the light may shine on each and every of those parts, can be tricky… but with careful planning, and using my time effectively, somehow, I’ve managed it thus far….
I can’t wait to properly get back into my studio for whatever this year awaits…. 🖌️📝
Ever onwards.
Jen x
#marchmeetthemaker
#behindthescenes
#whatsonmydesk
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
Hi, I’m Jenna. I am an Artist & Writer, from Fife, Scotland. I graduated with a degree in fine art printmaking from @djcad_uod in 2001. Crazily, a quarter of a century ago this year!!!! How time flies…
I am the face behind the name; and teller of the tales. I create original artworks, with birds and nature, feathers and flowers, and details of the natural world, often with drawings of myself and my children amongst it.
I have a range of prints, greetings cards, homewares and accessories which I call my own range of #JOYimprinted
I write, words that somehow make people feel… something. I love wordplay and wonder, the way words conjure imagery so rich, it feels you are there, living amongst the moments I tell of.
Stories of life and of love and of loss. Joy amongst it all, the central thread. The small moments that settle within our days. Where magic resides. There is always joy to search for, and to hold onto…
I’ve always felt my work was like a place, you can go, when you need to find solace. I know I do… that’s how I see it, in my own life. And I hope you do too.
#MarchMeetTheMaker
#aboutme
#JennaMartinLeitchArtist
#JennaMartinLeitchWriter
📸 @jillyjillystudio
February.
The month which saw me lay my Dad to rest. Where solicitor visits and formal requirements were met. Where I went back to work at the vets, after an extended period of leave, compassionate included.
Where I was part of a judging team for an art prize. Where I watched my girls play football, and went to my first High School parents night as a parent.
A month where I saw a full moon, and it felt close. Where snowdrops bloomed. Where I spent time with some of my best and oldest friends, back up at home, in Aberdeenshire, where I grew up.
Where I was able to look upon Bennachie and have it take my breath away. Where snow stopped us in our tracks. Wheels spinning and farmers and lorry drivers came to our rescue.
A month, where snow fell and sun shone. Where sunshine felt non existent and the weight of the world felt heavy. Rain, rain go away, we uttered… and sometimes, it did. Where catkins and blooms awoke.
Still… I ran. I wrote. I lifted.
I carved out time just for me, and I reflected upon the small wins, and the big wins, on a personal level as the month went on.
(Continues in comments)
https://fundraise.dementiauk.org/fundraisers/jennamartinleitch
