Every picture tells a story in this visual diary

A YEAR captured in drawings and a hundred runs were featured in a one-off art exhibitionheld in Dawlish last weekend.

Westcountry-based visual artist and creative educator Jen Madden brought her full year of daily drawings to The Good Space in Dawlish last Saturday with a free one day exhibition.

Throughout 2025 Jen, originally from Dublin but who is now based in the Blackdown Hills on the Devon and Somerset border, drew something every single day.

Everyday moments, familiar objects and the places she passed through all found their way onto the page, using a mix of mediums, and then building into a visual diary of an ordinary year seen up close.

All 365 drawings were shown together, for the first time, giving visitors to the exhibition the chance to follow a whole year one small moment at a time.

“I do love a challenge and alongside my job as a teacher and mother to a toddler decided to start the task to do a drawing everyday for one year,” said Jen.

Not one to rest on her laurels this year saw Jen ran 10K runs over 100 days - and then turned her Strava routes into daily art in a project exploring the relationship between data and art, which were also on display.

Jen is also the founder of Drawing Club, a monthly art mail club with members in 52countries. She is also the author of You Can Draw This, a practical drawing book published in the UK back in August.

"After becoming part of The Good Space community, I knew this was the perfect place to exhibit my drawings,” Jenn added. “It was really amazing to see all of the collection together in one place and see and hear the reactions of everyone who came to see it."