‘Winter, Blackmount’
‘Winter, Blackmount’, Acrylic & Pastel, 2010, 76 x 23 cm
I created this painting after our first visit to Ghlas Bheinn. I’ve now used the left hand side of it as the starting point for a new more abstract 80 x 80 cm oil painting, (see my latest blog). Both are based on a scene looking towards Clach Leathad with its huge southern face covered in snow.
Although nearly all my paintings are based on the Scottish upland landscape I do like to try and find new ways of interpreting it. I’ve spent nearly all of the last week working on an 80 x 80 cm canvas in oil. It’s quite a loose piece and I’ve just used the large horse hair house painting brush to create the marks on it.
Work in progress, February 14 2014 – Oil on Canvas
The starting point for the piece was a section of a painting I did several years ago about the peaks of the Blackmount, in particular Clach Leath and it’s wonderful southern face that always seems to catch the snow . In the winter months it stands out from most vantage points to the east, especially as you drive across the edge of Rannoch Moor on the A82 and in particular from the gentle ridge of Ghlas Bheinne. I’ve taken numerous photos of it over the years as it always grabs your attention and in spring 2012 we walked right underneath it on two occasions as we headed up the glen from Ba Bridge.
Since starting to work once again in oil on canvas, I’ve wanted to try and create much more abstract paintings. I want them still to be about the wild Scottish landscape but in a much looser way. I’ve created a number of these oil on canvas paintings over the last couple of years and am always trying to develop them. I decided therefore to start from a slightly different place with these new paintings ….instead of using photographs and sketches I’ve selected a section from one of my earlier paintings. This gives me a far more abstract starting point but one that is still landscape based.
As I say, the new painting is being created using just one brush ….a large coarse haired house painting brush approximately 7 inches wide and at least an inch thick. I’ve been building the painting up using quite thick oil paint and putting it down in rough, raw strokes and a very limited palette. This coarse haired brush leaves fine textures in the wet paint that once dry, gives an interesting surface over which to put down the next stroke. The painting is still not finished but I think it is starting to go in the right direction. The problem, as always, is trying to get the balance between the need by me to create a landscape painting as well as one that is abstract too……this can so easily lead to a painting that looks false and awkward. Oh well, I’ve just ordered a load more paint so it’s just a case of keeping on painting and hopefully learning. That I guess, is what painting for me is all about.
‘January morning, Glen Rosa, Isle of Arran’
‘January morning, Glen Rosa, Isle of Arran’, Graphite on paper, 2013, 125 x 80 cm
This drawing seemed like an appropriate piece to use for the Artwork of the week this week. I created it after our walk up Glen Rosa in January last year and yesterday we went back there. In January 2013 it was a good deal colder with snow on all the tops and well down to the base of the glen below Cir Mhor. It made for a great scene with the white cloud merging into the snow and the rocks and heather sticking through the snow in dark patches. Much less snow yesterday and what there was thawing quickly in the bright patches of sun we had.
This drawing is currently framed and hanging in my studio…..if you like it and live in the area ….why not call down to the Courtyard Studios to see it. You can check that I’ll be there, call 07742 437425.
Don’t be too shocked, we finally got the boots on again and made it across to the Isle of Arran yesterday. As you know, I’ve wanted to get back to Glen Rosa for the last couple of months but the extremely poor weather has until yesterday, kept us at bay.
Glen Rosa, Isle of Arran
Have to say that it didn’t look altogether promising as we disembarked from the ferry in Brodick at eight o’clock yesterday morning ….it was absolutely pouring down with rain and we got quite wet just getting the 100 metres to the waiting room where we’d planned to don the waterproofs. Of course by the time we had all the gear on the rain had passed and as we walked along the promenade the first breaks in the dark cloud were appearing.
It’s always a good walk from Brodick to Glen Rosa and well worth doing just for the spectacular scenery but this trip was a working one. With the plans for creating a big Glen Rosa drawing all arranged with the Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine later in the year, I needed to get back to the glen in order to start planning how exactly I’m going to do the piece. Yesterdays visit to the glen was to look at and record the first half of the glen. I wanted to spend time looking and thinking and making a few simple sketches.
As we entered the glen a Golden Eagle flew overhead, low enough for me to see it ….it made a good start to our day. Up to this point it had been difficult to know quite how much snow there was on the hills as the cloud level had been very low, but things quickly improved and we started getting glimpses of Beinn Nuis and Beinn a’ Chliabhain, the summits of both looking white and wintry.
Goat Fell from glen Rosa …approaching shower
A little further on and the glen swings around to the NW and at this point the views open up even more and the fine peak of Cir Mhor stands dramatically at the head of the glen. With the cloud rising and breaking and the periods of blue sky and bright sun increasing, we got some wonderful views and the colours were really quite intense at times. I spent a lot of time standing or sitting doing some quick sketches as we made our way up the footpath at the side of the river. Nita was busy taking photos and was particularly interested in the river that was full and busy but with incredibly clear water ……in the bright sun the patterns of the rocks underneath the water looked wonderful.
It was a very profitable day and I got a lot of information in the way of sketches and photographs. I’m still not one hundred per cent sure how I’m going to do this big drawing but I have come away with a much better idea. Now I need to get up to the head of the glen and record that section.
‘Towards the Lawers group’, Acrylic & Pastel, 2006,
‘Towards the Lawers group’
I was talking about hills with a visitor to my studio the other day and they mentioned Ben Lawers Nita and I have walked this big hill a good number of times over the last 15 years and it always makes for a fine day, especially so if its lofty summit is clear. At a little under 4000 ft you certainly feel like you’re on top of the world when you’re sat at its sometimes busy top, with spectacular views all around the Southern Highlands.
Anyway, I found myself thinking about this painting and thought it’d make a good ‘Artwork of the week’. It is based on a view we had looking towards the group of hills of which Ben Lawers is the dominant peak. It made a fine scene from a neighbouring Corbett and I remember standing for a good few minutes on this frost covered hilltop just staring at this amazing winter scene.
Glen Rosa, January 2013
Last week I moaned about having problems with my newly updated computer. Now then, I have to admit that I’m not the most computer literate person in the world and so trying to get everything back to normal has proved a little challenging! Thankfully Nita is up for a challenge and she’s been spending a good few hours sat at this machine sorting things out for me.
As I think I said in a previous blog , I’ve also just changed the magnification and screen reader software I use. This new software, Zoomtext, seems to be excellent but again, there’s a lot of new things to learn, so this, coupled with a rather new look Windows 7, is taking a lot of time to find my way around. Nita has done an excellent job and she’s re-loaded most of my software and it seems to be working quite well now…..I think I’ll have to buy Nita some chocolates and a bottle of wine as a thank you for all her work.
I’ve been working on a new painting this week and it’s starting to come on now. It’s based on a small scene we saw in Glen Rosa last January and I was rather hoping to get back over there again yesterday in order to start doing some serious planning for the big drawing project. The forecast had been excellent, calm, dry and reasonably bright ….it would have been the perfect day. We’d got it all booked and had planned to catch the 7 o’clock ferry over so that we’d get the maximum time to wander through the glen, stopping to do sketches and take some photos. Unfortunately my plans fell apart on Wednesday when a courier I’d booked, failed to collect! Ahhhhh! I’d waited at the studio all day but somehow the courier couldn’t find me! So, they said that they’d try again the next day …Thursday. I’m glad to say that the painting was finally collected, albeit a day late and with a bit of luck …it’ll be delivered safely sometime today. We’re now hoping that we might be able to get over to Arran this weekend or sometime next week; I’ll be checking the Mountain Weather information Service again and hoping for another fine day
”In the Luss Hills”
Well then we finally got out for a hill walk on Thursday ….the first one since our trip to Rannoch Moor at the end of November. Since then the weather seems to have been so bad with just one gale after another. What days were fine seemed to coincide with either Nita or I having to work. Anyway, on Monday we checked the mountain forecast and it seemed like Thursday would be the best of a bad bunch …so we booked it! We also decided to ask our friend Guy if he’d like to join us as we hadn’t seen him for ages. Interestingly he’d been planning to go to the same place …the Luss Hills, today, (Saturday) but quickly changed his plans in order to join us.
By the time Thursday arrived, the forecast had deteriorated somewhat with heavy rain and higher up, snow showers predicted for the morning and afternoon. ….and it didn’t disappoint! We decided to go early to avoid the traffic jams on the Erskine Bridge and we arrived at Luss at just after half past seven in the morning. Of course it was still almost completely dark but we were reckoning on the small cafe shop opening at 8 o’clock so that we could buy ourselves a coffee and sandwich while waiting for it get light. Alas, the wee shop was closed for a refit and we wandered back to our car dejected and devoid of nourishment!
By the time we started walking it was just light but heavy clouds hung quite low everywhere and it was raining hard. Everywhere was awash and the steep first section of the path leading up Beinn Dubh was more like a stream than a path. Even so, as soon as we got above the trees the views in gloom out over Loch Lomond were great ….and very atmospheric ….most of it falling on us I think. There was cause however for optimism as every now and again breaks appeared in the clouds and we could see patches of blue sky and brightness. After reaching about 300 m the rain quickly turned to snow and the steeper sections of the hill ahead of us were white….looking good against the dark skies.
”In the Luss Hills”
Suffice to say that none of us were feeling particularly fit having done little or no walking for almost two months. We moved very slowly up the hill but the regular stops allowed us to enjoy the increasingly fine views in increasingly bright and sunny conditions ….it really was a joy to see. We stopped somewhat short of the summit of Beinn Dubh but at one of the finest view points on the hill at I think, a little under 600m. The wind here was very strong and the snow freezing at this level, the wind chill was quite pronounced ….when I took my mitts off for a few minutes to take photos my fingers quickly became numb! We braved the wind and stopped and enjoyed the fine views across the loch to Ben Lomond ….while sipping hot coffee ….then headed back down. As we went we were enveloped in a big snow shower that swept in over the hill from the west. It was very impressive and I’m thinking of trying to do a painting about it soon. Must admit the walk did me a lot of good and I’m looking forward to getting out again hopefully one day next week.
”In the Luss Hills”
Back to normality yesterday and the joys of computers. I’ve just changed my screen magnifier / screen reader software to Zoom text 10 as my previous software was causing so many problems. However I really also needed to upgrade my main computer. It had been using XP but this was getting a little out of date and so I thought I might as well go the whole hog and get it changed over to Windows 7. I collected the machine from the shop where the new software had been added and all seemed fine ….until I tried to get onto the Internet. Then it just kept saying ‘no Internet connection available’! Nita spent ages trying to work out what was wrong but at the moment I still can’t get onto the Internet on that machine and so I’m using Nita’s laptop to write this. I haven’t used it for ages so I’m struggling to find my way around it. Could be you’ll never get this blog!
‘From the slopes of Sgorr nam Fiannaidh, Glen Coe’
‘From the slopes of Sgorr nam Fiannaidh, Glen Coe’, Oil & Pastel, 2004 – 2006, 85 x 49cm,
This is a rather tenuous link to this week’s blog. In it you’ll read that I’ve just finished a painting that was commissioned by a gentleman we met near the summit of Mam na Gualainn back in August.
The painting shown here however looks out over Loch Leven towards Mam na Gualainn and started off as an oil painting only. About that time I was also experimenting with using pastel with the paint….completing the painting in oil and only once it was dry, working over the surface with an oil pastel. I was pleased with the way it came out in the end and included it as one of the six paintings in my successful 2009 Jolomo Award application.
Near the summit of Mam-na-Gualainn – Starting point for a commission
As anyone following my blog or FB Keith Salmon – Scottish Landscape Artist page will know, I’ve been working on a painting about An Teallach for a chap we met near the top of Mam na Gualainn back in the late summer.
It’s been a really interesting process and yesterday I decided that the painting was probably finished ….and I signed it! I’ve been trying to create a painting that captures both, the idea of being at the summit of An Teallach as well as a more general feeling of being up high in the Scottish mountains.
The painting is now on the wall in my studio while I get on with some other work. I’ll be able to look at it for a couple of weeks and make any final adjustments before declaring the painting finally finished! It’s a difficult process knowing when a painting is finished or not and you have to give it some time. I’ve worked fairly intensely on this piece and as I’ve neared the end there’s been a lot of just sitting and looking rather than wielding of the paint brush.
The photo here was taken near the summit of Mam na Gualainn …..it’s a strange starting point for a commission ….but a very fine one. Hopefully the gentleman who we met here and who has commissioned the painting will like it. More news of this in another blog.
‘Below Cul Mor, Assynt’
‘Below Cul Mor, Assynt’, Acrylic & Pastel, 2008, 80 x 110 cm
It’s that time of year again where we have to decide where to go for our 2 weeks in May. The original plan had been to go somewhere completely new this year but we keep on thinking about Assynt again. It is such a wonderful region and although we’ve done much walking there over the last six or seven years, these wonderful hills deserve at least one more visit…..so we may well try and book a caravan at Achmelvich again ….a more peaceful and beautiful spot you couldn’t wish to find.
We’ve stayed there on four different occasions and I did this painting after a very memorable day spent walking the three summits of Cul Mor. Maybe if we do go back to Assynt this year, I’ll get to do another painting about this spectacular peak.