If there's one thing my Black Labrador Shadow knows, it's that he loves sticks. But what he doesn’t know is that he and I have gone into business together, turning the many sticks he fetches into drawing charcoal.‬ He already spends much of his time sniffing them out in the fields and forests surrounding our home, carrying them around, and nibbling off their bark, so naturally entrepreneurship was the logical next step.

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Another thing Shadow doesn't know, is - much like he and all our beloved canine companions - the sticks he loves so dearly have a cruelly brief time left on this earth.

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Many of the Ash trees across the island of Ireland are slowly dying, and research suggests that due to Ash dieback, they could all be gone from our forest, parks, and hedgerows within the next 30 years, a disturbing outlook with the island's already drastic reduction in tree cover from 80% to only 11% – the lowest in Europe.

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It is estimated that there are over half a million kilometres of hedgerows across the island of Ireland. Ash is the second most important component in large proportions of this hedgerow network, and is also widely used to provide material for the manufacture of hurleys and camogie sticks. 

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I want my wonderful dog and his obsessive, unfettered love of these prolific trees to leave a lasting memory, preserved in an enduring, indelible mark. And what better way to honour my Black Lab and his favourite trees than to make as much drawing charcoal together as possible using the many sticks they naturally shed, and to share them with as many people as we can, so that they can make loads of beautiful artwork which can last forever.

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Because, who wouldn’t want their dog to be with them for the rest of their life? The next best thing I could wish for is the knowledge that his memory and his passion for Ash trees will endure in the timeless artform of charcoal drawings, dark as Shadow.