My Love for Scotland – The Story Behind the Art! — Hallo Molly

Ach ye wee bonnie lass, sit doon and have some shortbread and let me tell ye about Scotland!

I have been enamored with Scotland ever since I was a teenager. I’ve always wanted to go, but I didn’t make it to this beautiful country until 2019, finally fulfilling my dream.

Before we made it to Scotland, Norway had been my favorite country to travel to. After visiting the Scottish Highlands though, Norway had to move over a little and share its first place with Scotland. Sorry, Norway.

Over the last two years I made a lot of cartoons and illustrations with a Scotland theme, especially after our Scottish Terrier Fergus moved in with us in 2021 (for more about Fergus click here: https://www.hallomolly.de/scottish-terrier-fergus-introduction/.

As a real Scottie, cartoon Fergus is a big fan of haggis. I feel like sometimes I’m beating a dead horse with my haggis jokes, but yeah! I mean, c’mon! Haggis! It’s funny!

Home of the Big Hagg! Scottie Dog holding up a platter with a can of haggis and fries

What I love about Scotland (Seriously, What’s Not To Love?)

What do I love about Scotland? First of all, of course, the amazing landscape! I think I could send you blindfolded to Scotland and just by randomly pointing a camera at the landscape you’d be able to make the most beautiful calendar! Yup, that’s how stunning the landscape is! Check out some of my photography from our 2019 trip:

Landscape photograph of the Scottish Highlands, a girl is standing on a rocky outcrop over a Loch

Landscape photograph of a boy sitting on a huge rocky outcrop overlooking the Highlands and the fjord

Apart from the obvious beauty of the country (especially the Highlands) I also love the culture, the people and (surprisingly) the food (but not haggis, sorry dear Scots)! We had the best seafood in the Scottish Highlands and I can’t wait to go there again this summer!

We were lucky enough to also attend some Scottish highland games with caber tossing, haggis throwing (yes, that’s a thing!) and a parade of bagpipe players. It was a very local affair with tons of booths and fun activities for the kids, we were so lucky to be there at the right time in summer!

photo of the Highland Games in Lochcarron, drummers and bagpipe players

So I guess I didn’t have to look for for inspiration for my recent sticker set. It was clear to me I wanted cartoon Fergus to be the main sticker, but I also wanted all the iconic symbols in there that people associate with Scotland. Clichés? Yes, please!

a cartoon sticker set featuring the Loch Ness Monster a Scottie dog and a whisky barrel

As for including Nessie, the monster of Loch Ness: We didn’t visit Loch Ness on the 2019 trip, but we visited Eilean Donan castle, where the famous 80s movie “The Highlander” was filmed.

We didn’t see Nessie there (duh, she lives further south!), but we took my son’s seamonster puppet with us. Muahaha. This is a family tradition I started over 10 years ago when I bought the first hand puppet for my kids. I always take one of our puppets on vacation to embarrass my husband in public. Muahaha again.

There’s been instances where he pretended he didn’t know us and walked away because I took out the puppet and started goofing around with it for a fun photo. Pff. He’s so easily embarrassed :p

a sea monster puppet held up in front of Eilean Donan Castle in Scotland

Haggis!

I thought about including a haggis in the sticker sheet but then realized that it just looks like a balloon on a plate, which I guess it literally is! Also, the famous shortbread was discarded after some initial sketches, since it looks a bit like a yellow brick with holes in it. Err. No offence my dear Scottish people, I love shortbread, but it didn’t make for a great visual

How our Scottish Terrier Fergus Came to Us

During the pandemic I started doodling all the different terrier breeds for a Christmas card reading “Terry Christmas”. I started to read the character descriptions of the different breeds and really fell in love with Scottish terriers. I managed to talk my husband into getting Scotty puppy and thus brought Scotland to our home. Woohoo! Hubby had always vetoed a dachshund and somehow discarded the fact that Scotties are very close to the ground as well. Ach, aye, score!

Ever since we got puppy Fergus I’ve started to incorporate Scottish culture into my cartoons, often making jokes about the various forms Fergus incorporates haggis into his cooking, much to the horror of Billabong and Molly as you can see here, merry Haggsmanay and ho ho hurl!