Edinburgh Art Gallery Tours, Art Workshops, and Artwork
About Kirsteen

The artist
About Kirsteen
Local Artist Kirsteen Lyons (BA Hons) grew up in the art scene in Scotland - Educated in Design at Heriot-Watt university, Edinburgh, she has spent a lifetime helping others create art.


"I have been making art, teaching and tutoring art all my life. I have a degree in design from Heriot Watt University but even before that I have taught and made; art, drama, design, photography, sculpture, drawing, ceramics and more. I think art is very important to happiness, all of us need art in our lives, to have beauty around us and to reach for what is good in mankind. I love to encourage people to set aside the monsters in their heads that tell then they cannot do art and help them reach that happiness that comes from pure creation. I have run arts festivals, created blogs, taught workshops, created a craft fair, run businesses and taught in schools but all with one drive, to help more adults and children find more peace and joy through art." Kirsteen
"I love teaching others any skill I have learned. I have created a YouTube channel to share art and give help to anyone. It is a good way to see me create art and teach." Kirsteen
About the artist
Kirsteen Lyons-Benson BA (Hons) is a talented artist with a rich creative heritage. Born to two artists who met at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1960s, Kirsteen grew up in a truly unconventional environment. Her parents, following their marriage, fled the city for a remote Scottish island, where they lived on a beach in a tent with two kittens and a chest of drawers.
Surrounded by the world of art from an early age, Kirsteen was influenced by notable Scottish artists, including her father's close friend, the celebrated Alastair Gray. These early experiences sparked her passion for creativity and shaped her artistic journey.
Kirsteen’s formal education in textile design was the next step in her development. Excelling at university, she won prestigious competitions and had her work featured in the Lighthouse Design Centre, Scotland's most esteemed design gallery. Straight out of university, she secured a position with a wallpaper manufacturer in new product development, which led to various roles in innovation companies. However, after exploring what she describes as "middle-class ideas"—such as paying a mortgage and working in PR—she quickly realised, as her parents had always said, that these pursuits were highly overrated.
Kirsteen's entrepreneurial spirit led her to explore a wide range of creative ventures. She experimented with selling paintings online, running London markets, organising and managing craft fairs, launching a gallery and pottery, and even starting a face painting business. Eventually, she returned to her roots in textile design, working as a freelance artist from home while raising her daughter and son.
Throughout her varied career, Kirsteen has continued to teach art and exhibit her own work. For two years, she embarked on a daily drawing project, creating one piece of art every day—not for recognition, but for the joy and relief it brought her as a parent. This personal project inspired many others, as people wrote to her, sharing how her work encouraged them to explore their own creativity.
Kirsteen has fully embraced her artistic upbringing and now finds herself comfortably settled in suburban life—though she often reflects on it with a sense of humour, describing herself as a "Bengal tiger on a water slide." Her adventurous spirit has taken her across Spain and Portugal over two winters, where she traveled in a series of beat-up camper vans with her children, documenting her experiences through blogging. These underfunded, ill-planned adventures have enriched her life, broadened her perspective, and taught her that the world is filled with both light and dark moments. Through her art, Kirsteen captures and shares the hope and beauty she has discovered, creating work that speaks to the resilience and optimism we all need.
Kirsteen Lyons-Benson’s work is a reflection of her journey—one that embraces both the chaos and the beauty of life, and invites others to see the world through a hopeful, creative lens.
New Art Tour opens in Edinburgh inclusive, green and giving back to the community.
Now visitors and locals alike can now tour Edinburgh galleries with a real artist, and make art at the galleries.
Local artist Kirsteen Lyons-Benson (Bachelor of Arts with Honours) will tour visitors through inspiring Scottish art and then teach them how to create your own art to treasure as a memory of the experience. The tour will be small groups and lots of help will be available so any level of ability including complete beginners can enjoy the experience.
Kirsteen grew up in Scotland’s art scene, her parents met at Glasgow School of Art and were friends and contemporaries with such famous names as Alastair Grey - who read Lanark to her father while he was writing it (and burned any pages her father did not enjoy). Kirsteen later interviewed Alastair Grey about his paintings and drawings long before the solo show at the National Galleries of Scotland brought these works to their rightful acclaim. This rich history was followed by attaining her design degree at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University. Kirsteen is now keen to share her passion for Scottish art and help a diverse range of learning styles and visitors experience Scotlands rich culture.
Kirsteen is a working artist herself and has regular exhibitions throughout the UK, including the iconic Lighthouse, Scotland's Centre for Design and Architecture.
The tour will be a green as possible with visitors making short walks to the various locations through stunning Edinburgh landmarks and the artist even gets the bus to the city! Kirsteen is also passionate about Human Rights and wants the tour to fund a series of Human Rights education events in Edinburgh this coming summer.
What the public say about the tour and workshop:
“I booked my family on this workshop and we had such a lovely time! My 11 year old and my husband are talented but I’m not and I haven’t sketched since high school some 30 years ago. Kirsteen managed to nurture confidence and inspire all of us. We were delighted with our sketches and my daughter immediately started practising what Kirsteen had taught her when we got home!” JG (Google business review)
“Kirsteen is an amazing art guide and tutor and completely returned my motivation for doing art.”NC (Google business review)