Eardley set up a studio in Glasgow, close to the deprived Townhead area, where she became known for her drawings and paintings of poor city children, often playing in the streets in ragged clothes, the older girls looking after younger siblings.
In the early 1950s while convalescing from mumps Eardley was taken by a friend to visit Catterline, a small fishing village near Stonehaven, then in Kincardineshire (now Aberdeenshire).