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Exhibitions | Scottish Landscape Art - Scottish Landscape Paintings - Part 10

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Bugged, snowed on, frozen and no work worked for six days!….Slacking or what?

Posted by admin on December 12th, 2010
'In Eglinton Country Park, Monday afternoon'

'In Eglinton Country Park, Monday afternoon'

A late blog again I’m afraid.  Suddenly it’s Sunday evening and I’ve just realised I haven’t written anything.  It’s been one of those weeks and one best forgotten.  Not only did I not get the blog written, I also got no painting done either.

The week started out well last Sunday with a very enjoyable few hours at the Courtyard Studios Christmas Fair.  It was the first time we’d held such an event and so I think we were all a little uncertain as to quite how many people might come along.  The fair took place at the Harbour Arts Centre which is just two doors down the street from the studios.  It’s an excellent venue and has a great bar / restaurant too.  We are though out along the harbour side and as such, a 15 minute walk from the main shopping area in Irvine.  At this time of year not too many people leave their town based Christmas shopping to venture in our direction.  That said though, Gordon (our new studio rep) did a grand job at promoting the event and had managed to get the local paper to write a piece about the fair….and it worked.  We had a very good turn out and although none of us I guess will be able to retire on the proceeds, we all I think sold a few items and most importantly, we helped let people know where we are.

'Trees in Eglinton Country Park, Monday afternoon'

'Trees in Eglinton Country Park, Monday afternoon'

From that point though, the week took a decided downward trend.  By Sunday evening I was feeling decidedly rough and as things hadn’t improved the next morning I decided to stay at home and catch up with some work on the computer.  Then it started snowing …and sticking, which is quite an event for Irvine.  Being on the coast we quite often miss the snow …but not this time.  We didn’t have the falls that so badly affected most of the central belt but it was nice and by the afternoon despite feeling ill, I just had to go out for a wee walk in it.  From the house you can follow an old disused railway line up to the edge of Eglinton Country Park and from their follow any number of paths through the rough mixture of grass and woodland.  It makes a very pleasant wander and with the snow down it looked great even under the dark grey skies.

By Tuesday I felt even worse and took to my bed and slept.  Wednesday was just as bad and Thursday too, but on Friday I suddenly started to feel a good deal better and so finally made it back to the studio on Saturday.  Today I’m still sniffing and coughing but just about back to rights but with six days missed I now have to try and catch up with my work.  I don’t normally work to a deadline but with the show coming up in Strathearn Gallery in early February I have quite a tight schedule.  I also sold one painting the previous weekend and have heard that I may have sold another one at one of the galleries …so a bit more work to be done….it’s all go.

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Snap!

Posted by admin on December 2nd, 2010
West from Cul Mor, Assynt

West from Cul Mor, Assynt

I’ve loved taking photographs ever since buying my first camera, (a little Ilford instamatic) through a special offer on the back of a cereal box, back in 1969.  It wasn’t the finest of cameras but at the age of ten it seemed pretty good to me.  I bought it just before we went on holiday to Eire and I came back with 12 (albeit rather fuzzy) photos of the Dingle peninsular.  What is more, they were the only photographs of the holiday  ….my father had failed to load his 35 mm film properly and came back to find an unexposed roll of film in his camera!

That little camera certainly got me into snapping photos whenever we went anywhere and before long I moved up market a little and got myself a very solid Zenith SLR. This camera was certainly not a sexy beast, (I think it was made out of plate steel) and I  lugged it around along with a great little Weston light meter, for many years.   By the time I was at Falmouth School of Art in the early 1980’s it was a bit of a joke to many of my friends who had spent much of their grants on new hi tech cameras.  In the Easter break in 1981 a small group of us spent three weeks up on North Uist enjoying the wild beaches, the loch strewn land and the isolated hills of Beinn Mhor and Hecla.  One of the group forgot to take a spare battery for his camera …and it ran out on the first week  …no place to buy a replacement of course.  Another friend, Paul, dropped his camera and being made out of plastic, the top cracked.  And so it was yours truly  (feeling rather smug) with my battered old iron clad manual Zenith who came away with the photos.

From Am Bodach, the Mamores

From Am Bodach, the Mamores

The Zenith, (now almost 35 years old,) still works although I put it into retirement at least ten years ago) and I’ve now moved into the digital age!!  As my sight deteriorated I found I was taking more and more bad photographs.  Using film and finding that 22 out of the roll of 24 were either tilting the sea out, had a thumb in the corner, or were simply just dreadful …well, it was getting expensive….hence my getting a digital camera. Now I can tilt the skyline as much as I want, take hundreds of dreadful pictures and get all five digits in front of the lens …and it doesn’t cost me anything …and if you snap enough you tend to get a couple of reasonable pictures most days.

On the edge of Rannoch Moor

On the edge of Rannoch Moor

Anyway, the reason for rambling on about photographs and cameras is that we’re holding a small Christmas Affordable Art Fair at the Harbour Arts  Centre in Irvine on Sunday 5th December and Sunday 19th December.  Around about a dozen of the artists and makers at the Courtyard Studios will be taking part with a wide range of paintings, drawings, prints, jewellery and cards on sale.  I’ve decided to show a dozen photographs taken on the Scottish hills during the last 10 or so years.  Most of them are my own but I’ve also included a couple that my partner Anita took….with her permission of course!  It’ll be interesting to see what reaction I get with them.

The Cobbler

The Cobbler

So, the event runs from 12 noon until 4 pm on 5th & 19th December.  The Courtyard Studios are only two doors away from the Harbour Arts Centre on Harbour Street in Irvine.  I’ll have my studio open as well so if you want to see some paintings too, then just drop by.  There should be other studios open at the Courtyard too.  I look forward to meeting anyone who can get along.

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A quick trip to Crieff

Posted by admin on November 13th, 2010

'Above the Rest and Be Thankful'

'Above the Rest and Be Thankful'

A couple of weeks ago The Strathearn Gallery in Crieff took six of my paintings with them down to the Battersea Park Affordable Art Fair. They sold two of the paintings and so on Thursday we drove up to Perthshire to collect the unsold pieces and deliver two small pieces (shown here) for their forthcoming Christmas exhibition.

I’m sure I needn’t remind you but the weather that day was pretty vile. The thought of lugging several big paintings from the gallery to the car park a hundred or so metres away, in heavy rain and gale force winds was not a good one, but as Anita was working Friday and Saturday and the gallery was closed on the Sunday, we didn’t have much choice.

'On Quinag, May'

'On Quinag, May'

It didn’t look to promising as we set out from Irvine in the morning. There were dark threatening clouds to the east and we thought the worst. ….but as we approached Glasgow the sun came out (who said it was rainy in the west?!) and we seemed to follow the bright blue patches in the sky all the way to Crieff. It made for a lovely journey, especially once past Stirling and into the Perthshire countryside. The trees looked great in the bright sun and the colours were really intense. As we approached Crieff though there was really dark heavy cloud sitting on the hills behind the town ….where we’d been walking only a few weeks before ….and it didn’t seem likely that the sun would last that much longer.

It remained long enough though, to get the paintings down the street and into the car without getting a soaking and we were soon heading off back in the direction of the A9 and Glasgow. I had broached the subject of driving back via Crianlarich …the scenic route, but Nita said it was going to rain and we wouldn’t see anything …and she got it right. We’d not got more than a couple of kilometres out of Crieff when the rain started …and it quickly turned into a deluge. It was horrible ….really wet and very dark …I couldn’t see a thing ….good job they don’t let me drive ey?! Well, it remained like this all the way back to Glasgow but by the time we were getting into Ayrshire there was a bit of sun appearing again and we were able to unload the paintings from the car into my studio in the dry ….quite amazing.

Anyway, The Strathearn Gallery Christmas Exhibition opens on Saturday 20th November 2010 with a private view from 11am – 3 pm.

Exhibition opening hours Monday – Saturday 10 am – 5pm, Sunday 1pm – 5pm

January 2011 opening hours: Thursday – Sunday, 12 noon – 5pm

There are works by many artists in the exhibition so it should make for a great show.

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Research work!

Posted by admin on October 28th, 2010
Ben Chonzie from Meall na Seide

Ben Chonzie from Meall na Seide

When I first set up my studio at the Courtyard Studios in Irvine, my work was based around the man made landscapes of the town and its Harbourside area.  Although I’ve been a keen hill-walker for much of my life I’d  never combined the two interests of walking and painting.  By 2004 though, we were getting out into the Scottish hills on a very regular basis and it was while out on what was my very first real winter walk with our local mountaineering club Air na Creagan, (check out their website www.craggy.org.uk ) that it suddenly dawned on me that I was missing a trick and that I really ought to use my experiences whilst out in the landscape, as the subject for my paintings.  By this time I’d started to get a bit of a reputation at the Courtyard; if the weather was fine I would not be found in my studio …..I’d be out on a hill somewhere!  So then, it made perfect sense to start painting the wilder parts of the Scottish landscape ….and of course, now my days away on the hill could be called research work!

As I’ve said in the past I’ve been invited to put on a solo show of work at The Strathearn Gallery in Crieff  for a month starting on the 12th of February 2011.  For anyone who hasn’t visited this gallery, it’s a fantastic space and Fiona (the gallery owner) has said I’ll need around 40 – 45 pieces ….so quite a lot of work.   As Crieff is situated close to the wild heather clad moors around Loch Turret, it seems to make sense to try to do some paintings based on this area for the exhibition in February.

Anita and I visited Loch Turret back in the late winter / early spring and had a wonderful day wandering the hills.  At the time there was still quite a good deal of snow around and the loch was completely frozen …it was some sight.   So then, last Sunday we decided to head back there and to do a bit more wandering.  I hoped to see it in its autumn colours and to perhaps do some sketching and take some photos.

Picnic Spot

Picnic Spot

The forecast for the weekend was for sun and cold northerly wind ….and for the chance of some snow on the higher tops …especially further north.  As it turned out  Nita spotted the snow up on our hills, from just north of Stirling on the A9.  It looked quite wintry and it didn’t seem any time at all since I was complaining about the heat over in Speyer …where had all the time gone?!

When we got to the dam everything looked beautiful with the autumn colours of the grass, bracken and heather on the lower slopes and the bright white of the snow above about 700m.  But there was a biting cold wind blowing down from the north and I decided that there was little point in taking the sketch book – it would be just too cold.   We followed the same route as back in the spring and although in the wind the conditions were quite severe, once out of it and in the sun, it was really very pleasant. Oh well, too far to go back and get the sketch book. But the light and colours were great. As we got near our high point at a little over 750m we were just into the snow and Ben Chonzie, a couple of kilometres further to the north, looked quite white.

We took a rather circuitous route back, but one that gave us great views down into the strath below. The sun was getting very low as we descended the steep slopes back to the dam and the hillside opposite was coloured vivid yellows and ochres in the late light. It was quite an end to the day and I have come away with a number of ideas for new paintings. Quite a good day’s work!

Late Sun

Late Sun

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“New Gallery Artists”, ScotlandArt.com – Edinburgh Gallery

Posted by admin on October 22nd, 2010
on-beinn-liath-mhor-acrylic-pastel-2010-60-x-30-cm

'On Beinn Liath Mhor'

Back in August while I was working in Speyer, I received an email from Scotlandart.com inviting me to take part in a group exhibition of work by artists new to the gallery. They asked me for six medium sized pieces for the show that opens on 29th October. Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been too difficult – it giving me the best part of two months to get the work done. However, with my being in Speyer until early September and having to get work ready for both the Jolomo Awards finalist show and the Battersea Park AAF, this would make it quite a tight schedule.

I got the boards cut and primed while still in Germany and worked out and drew in the first three pieces. This was quite important as it meant that I could get straight down to work on my return to Irvine. These first three paintings are all 60 x 30 cm whilst the final three are just slightly smaller at 60 x 27 cm. Of the six paintings three are completely new images and the other three are new versions of previous paintings. Anyway, despite the rush I managed to complete all six pieces in time for the hand-in date last week and am now just looking forward to seeing them on the wall when we go to the gallery for the preview on Thursday 28th Oct.

Below are the six paintings.

Details of the exhibition are:

“New Gallery Artists”

ScotlandArt.com – Edinburgh Gallery
2 St Stephen Place
Stockbridge
Edinburgh EH3 5AJ
Tel: 0131 225 6257
Open: Tuesday – Friday 10.30am – 5.30pm, Saturday 10.00am – 5.30pm, Sunday 12 noon – 5.00pm

The exhibition runs from 29th Oct 2010 – 21st Nov 2010

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Battersea Park Affordable Art Fair – with The Strathearn Gallery, Crieff

Posted by admin on October 8th, 2010

'Below Cul Mor, Assynt', Acrylic & Pastel, 2008, 80 x 110 Ref-95

'Below Cul Mor, Assynt'

Earlier this year, Fiona at The Strathearn Gallery in Crieff, asked me if I could let them have six paintings for the Battersea Park Affordable Art Fair. The gallery is taking a stand at the fair this autumn and it seems a great opportunity.

Of course, it’s always difficult deciding quite which pieces to send and to be honest I changed my mind a few times before finally settling on the six paintings. Fiona has asked for two small pieces, three medium and one large. I had the choice of two large pieces but in the end have gone with ‘Below Cul Mor, Assynt’. This is quite a bold piece for me, with bright colours and broad sweeps of paint. It is based on the view of the main rocky summit of the hill from the small loch that nestles below it in an area of beautiful exposed horizontal beds of red sandstone. We sat here for a while a couple of years ago, contemplating the steep and at the top, rocky ascent ahead of us.

The three medium size pieces were slightly more difficult to select. At first I was going to include three of my long thin 76 x 23 cm paintings, but in the end I’ve omitted one of these and have included instead the slightly larger piece, ‘Winter afternoon, Beinn Dorain’. I think this will work well with the Cul Mor painting as it has similar sweeps of paint and is another quite bold piece.

When it came to the two small pieces I was swayed by popular opinion. Last weekend at the Courtyard studios Open Weekend I had a number of my small 30 x 30 cm paintings on display and a couple of them were getting a lot of attention. These were ‘Autumn grasses, Beinn Inverveigh’ and ‘On Beinn a’Ghlo, autumn’.

'Winter afternoon, Beinn Dorain', Acrylic & Pastel, 2009 Ref 137

'Winter afternoon, Beinn Dorain'

I’m currently sat in the kitchen typing this and upstairs Anita has the six paintings. In the past I’ve managed to send paintings to galleries that have on occasions had marks on their frames and on one infamous occasion, even sent one small piece with its glass missing! The joys of limited vision I’m afraid and so now I ask Nita to check all the work before we wrap it up and send it off to the gallery.

So then, that’s us away up to Crieff tomorrow to deliver the work to The Strathearn Gallery. From Irvine it’s about an hour and three quarters in the car I guess and once beyond Glasgow the route goes through some very pleasant country….so it’ll make a nice trip. Rising just to the north of the town, are the hills surrounding Loch Turret. You may remember we were walking up here early this year and we’re now planning another walk in the area one day soon. I’m hoping it’ll be warm enough to sit and do some sketching as I really want to get some paintings done of this beautiful area.

'Autumn grass, Beinn Inverveigh', Acrylic & Pastel, 2009 Ref 136

'Autumn grass, Beinn Inverveigh'

If you’re in London and can get along to the fair, the details are:

The Affordable Art Fair, Battersea Park, London

The Strathearn Gallery stand number is: I 14.

The fair opens on Wednesday evening 20th October.

The last day of the fair is Sunday 24th October.

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A busy week

Posted by admin on October 4th, 2010
Courtyard Studio Artists 2010

Courtyard Studio Artists 2010

To say it’s been busy this week is a bit of an understatement. Of course it is the perfect excuse for why this blog is so late, ….well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

As I’ve already said in past blogs, I’m busy working on six paintings for an exhibition with Scotlandart.com at their Edinburgh gallery starting at the end of October. These paintings have to be ready and delivered in about two weeks. They’re coming on well. Two are finished and framed, two more are finished and just need putting into their frames and two are well under way and hopefully will be finished by the end of the week. I’m pleased with the four completed ones and they’ve been getting quite a lot of interest from visitors to the studio …so hopefully some of these people may go to see the exhibition once it opens.

All painting stopped on Monday evening as on Tuesday I had to travel down to London for the private view of the ‘Jolomo Landscape Painting Awards 2009 Finalists Exhibition – One Year On’. This was held at the Royal Opera Arcade Gallery in Pall-mall and luckily the organiser had managed to book us a room at the Civil Service Club not far away. It was a good journey down by train and very quick too …just five hours from Irvine to Euston and so we didn’t have to set off too early and arrived in ample time to get to the gallery by 6.30pm. It was a busy event and a very enjoyable evening. It seemed to go well with lots of interest and several paintings sold …so it’ll be interesting to hear how the remainder of the week long exhibition went. These events are always pretty tiring I find and so by half past nine we were in need of food and a beer and found somewhere just off of Trafalgar Square to recover and relax .

As we were holding our studio open weekend at the Courtyard at the weekend, there was no time for us to stay down in London to enjoy a few days of gallery visits and wandering the city. It was straight back to Scotland on Wednesday morning and a mad day and a half on Thursday and Friday morning, getting the studio ready for the weekend event. This is normally something that takes me around four days but Anita was on holiday all that week so she did a lot of work to help me. We just about got everything done by mid afternoon on Friday and then after a quick change we rushed for the train and headed over to Edinburgh for the preview of a group exhibition at the Gallery on the Corner ….in which a close friend, Lorraine Nicholson, was showing some of her photographs and paintings. It was a good show with some excellent work. The exhibition runs for two weeks so well worth a look if you’re in Edinburgh. The journey back wasn’t quite so good though. We managed to miss the half past eight train and the nine o’clock one was cancelled due to a lack of a driver. The half past nine train was then a little late leaving but at least got us back into Glasgow well in time to catch the eleven o’clock train to Irvine. We were back home by midnight …and it was at this point I decided that this blog would have to be late ….there was no way I was going to try and write it at that time of night!

We were back down the studio first thing on Saturday morning, hanging the last couple of paintings, putting labels up, sweeping the floor and going around with the spirit level checking that everything was straight. The first visitor arrived just on eleven and just as everything was completed.

It was a good weekend. The weather was fine and this brought out lots of people. I’m not sure of the exact numbers but I’d estimate around about two hundred over the course of the weekend …so pretty good. I have a couple of potential sales along with much interest …so I’m more than happy. I think most of the other twelve artists made sales or potential sales and I know one artist got a commission …so at the end yesterday evening we were all happy, if just a little tired.

Courtyard Studio Artists 2010

Courtyard Studio Artists 2010

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Exhibition on

Posted by admin on August 27th, 2010
speyer-preview

Speyer Exhibition Preview

I think last week I said I was trying to finish a large painting before we hung the exhibition on Monday. Well …it was finished but not until well into Sunday! After that I had to remove all the painting gear that I’d accumulated over the last four months so that we had two clear clean gallery spaces for the exhibition. This took quite some time and it was 10pm by the time I had everything done. The trouble was that I still had one 80 x 80 cm board that I’d primed with gesso a few weeks earlier and that I’d planned to do a new drawing on. So, even at the very last moment I thought I could get a final drawing completed and announced to my partner Anita that instead of going to bed I’d be working late! And I did …until around 03.00! The result however was not as hoped for and the piece I did was dreadful….but I enjoyed myself even if I did feel shattered the next morning when Markus, Mike and Andrea arrived first thing to hang the exhibition!

speyer-preview-2

Speyer Exhibition Preview

The work went up fairly quickly and by lunchtime we had it almost complete and looking good ….leaving just a few things still to do. The local press arrived in the evening for a preview and at the end, Michael Lauter announced that I was now on holiday.

We had the Preview last night at 8 o’clock, but it was a worrying few hours as all day the sky had got darker and the humidity higher. It had to end with a bang and the 1st thunder storm arrived at 5 o’clock…great stuff. As it turned out though, we were lucky and by 8 o’clock, it was dry again and around 60 people gathered in the courtyard as Holger (Chairman of Kunstlerbund) and the Mayor opened the exhibition and Markus gave a wonderful speech, recounting how I came to be working in Speyer. This being the Pfalz, there was plenty of local wine flowing and by the end of the evening I had sold 2 paintings and was having discussions with a local businessman re him buying my big, 4 metre long drawing for his restaurant in Speyer.

speyer-preview-markus-speech

"Markus' Speech"

speyer-preview-meeting-the-mayor

"Meeting the Mayor"

What a night, finally got to bed at 3:30, but not before we’d been treated to an amazing piece of unaccompanied, improvised singing from one of Speyer’s best loved singers and musicians, Klaus Fresenius…quite brilliant.

Click here to see my Speyer Art Exhibition Paintings

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Show time!

Posted by admin on August 21st, 2010

bildschirmfoto-2010-08-19-um-18-34-59

Speyer Exhibition Poster

Well then, this is almost it ….time to show what I’ve been doing during my stay in Speyer. Needless to say, I’m still working on one painting …but it’s getting there and I’m hoping to have it finished by this evening. The preview is at the Kunstlerhaus on Thursday evening at 8pm and the original plan was to hang all the work on Tuesday evening. I’m one of those people who always works right up to a deadline. However, for local journalists to write a review of the show they need to see it by Monday evening. This is no problem but has meant a bit of last minute re-scheduling on both my part and the members of the Kunstlerbund.

So then, the plan now is to hang the show on Monday morning / afternoon. Four of the artists from the Kunstlerbund are coming to the Kunstlerhaus at 9 am on Monday and between us we’ll put the exhibition together. I have 12 paintings completed and the one large piece I’m still working on ….so with a bit of luck 13 pieces as well as the one large drawing and two other medium size line drawings.

This is very much a ‘work show’ rather than a full blown exhibition. Most of the paintings (done on 6mm mdf) will be presented unframed – just two pieces framed for the main wall. Anyway, even though I say it myself, I’m starting to think it’ll look quite good.

It’ll be good to get the work up on the walls and especially good to get them reviewed in the papers. After Monday I have a couple of days off …

On Thursday we hold the main preview evening attended by the cultural mayor of Speyer. She had visited at the start of my stay and so it’ll be interesting to see what she thinks of my paintings almost four months on. The members of the Kunstlerbund were busy on my behalf last week, addressing and sending 200 invitation cards. We have more of the cards still to give out, so hopefully it’ll be a good turn out. Anyway, for anyone who is reading this and can get to Speyer on Thursday evening please accept my invitation to the preview. The exhibition is open to the public on Friday, Saturday and Sunday 27th, 28th & 29th August, 11.00 – 13.00 & 15.00 – 18.00.

Now I’d better get back to that final painting!

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Painting from experience

Posted by admin on August 6th, 2010
'Between Creise and the Buachaille, winter'

'Between Creise and the Buachaille, winter'

It’s amazing to think that this time in four weeks I’ll be back in my studio in Irvine. My time here has gone by very quickly and I’m now getting in ‘panic mode’ as my final exhibition looms and I’ve still much work to do!

I’ve now completed eight paintings and have another four still on the go. I’ve also been working on a couple of small ‘Scottish’ pieces for forth coming exhibitions and have a couple more of these on the go too.

It’s been interesting working on the two different types of subject matter…..the bigger paintings based on the cathedral in Speyer and the Pfalz landscape and the smaller Scottish landscapes. It’s made me realize just how important it is to really get to know your subject when it comes to doing a painting. My Scottish paintings are all based on the places I walked (sometimes many times and in all conditions) and so when I get back to the studio I not only have numerous photos and some sketches, but I have many many hours of actually being out observing and experiencing the landscape I’m painting. These experiences are in a way stored in my memory and are used in all my Scottish paintings. As such it has meant that despite my being in Germany for the last three months, I’ve been able to work on these small Scottish scenes with the use of just a couple of photos as memory joggers.

'Beinn Dorain from Beinn Odhar, April'

'Beinn Dorain from Beinn Odhar, April'

‘Beinn Dorain from Beinn Odhar, April’, is based on one of the views from the summit of this fine steep grassy 900 m hill and I’ve stood here on a good number of occasions. It makes a good short walk but it is very steep so it gives your legs a good work out – we normally head here in April to tone up the muscles before our two weeks walking holidays in early May each year. The point is that although I haven’t been there this year, I’ve all the memories of the previous times I’ve climbed the hill and all the different conditions I’ve seen it in, the different light and in rain and cloud and sun. If I’d only been out occasionally over the last eight years rather than every few weeks, I’d not have been able to do this painting ….working from a photo on its own is very difficult …even if you have got good eyes to see it.

This is why for the most part I’ve put all my attention on painting the Speyer Cathedral while I’ve been living here. It is the most obvious thing to paint in this city, but as I can’t easily get out into the countryside, it has offered me something which I can visit regularly and get to know. Over the time I’ve been here I’ve built up a mental impression of it …so that I have much more to work on than just a few photos. This is where I’ve had problems trying to produce a couple of paintings of the typical Pfalz landscape. I’ve only been out into the wine growing region a few times and have only experienced it very briefly. I took a few photos and as I’m a landscape painter I wanted to do something before leaving that was of the local landscape …rather than just the man made landscape of the city……and I’ve been struggling! It’s just that I really don’t know the subject I’m trying to paint. The colours and light are very different here and I haven’t got a head full of ‘information’ to fall back on.

I’m not sure whether I’ll complete these two paintings …we’ll see I guess. It’s certainly made me realize how important it is to get out and as I’ve done very little hill walking this year it’s made me determined to find the time as soon as I’m back in Scotland. Fingers crossed for some good September weather in the west of Scotland.

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