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A long short walk

Posted by admin on June 21st, 2013
Meall Teibh from the summit of Beinn Inverveigh

Meall Teibh from the summit of Beinn Inverveigh

‘What we need’, I said to Nita last weekend ‘is a nice easy short walk to get us back into it after three weeks of coughing, spluttering and very little exercise’.  Well that was the plan anyway, but as so often happens, things didn’t exactly turn out this way.

We had decided that the place to go was Beinn Inverveigh; a long whale back of a hill that rises close to Loch Tulla.  To give ourselves a gentle walk in, we parked the car at Bridge of Orchy and followed the West Highland Way a couple of kilometres to a high point overlooking Loch Tulla.  It was so good to get out again and even though the clouds were thick, dark and quite low, there was a wonderfully atmospheric feel to the day …..and it wasn’t raining.  A couple who had been following us along the WHW passed at this point and continued along the path as it descends towards the Inveroran Hotel …..and they were the only people we saw during the whole of the day…….not bad for mid June.  Our route left the WHW and followed a small path heading towards Beinn Inverveigh.  The cloud appeared to be rising slowly and it was certainly above the top of our modest little hill and as we started heading up steeper ground to gain the end of this long broad ridge, the sun actually came out for a brief spell.  Once the height is gained, it’s an easy wander, the ground being a mixture of grass, moss and rock.  Normally there are many wee lochs and pools up here, but the dry spring had meant that many of the smaller ones were dry, the dark peat cracked into crazy patterns.

Heavy skies above Beinn Inverveigh

Heavy skies above Beinn Inverveigh

The top of Beinn Inverveigh is one of these rocky outcrops that just happens to be a few centimetres higher than all the rest …and is marked with a small cairn.  Another little outcrop about 100 metres away also has a cairn, but which one is the highest is a debatable point ….which ever one you stand by, the other always looks higher …until you go to that one and look back!

On the steep slopes of Meall Teibh

On the steep slopes of Meall Teibh

And that, as they say, was supposed to be that.  We’d taken about three hours to do this leisurely walk and had planned to have an even more leisurely lunch break and then wander back ….an ideal little airing.  Well……despite, in all honesty, feeling a little weary, I started to look over my shoulder to where I could see the dark lump of the neighbouring hill, Meall Teibh…..and it did look very inviting.  I think in some respects, I’m a bit like a gold fish for within a few minutes of sitting down, I’d completely forgotten that my legs had been aching and that I was feeling tired and had planned a nice short easy walk.  I heard myself saying to Nita, ‘we’ve never walked Meall Teibh from this direction …what do you think?’  Nita, realising her short day was going out the window, is, none the less, equally mad and she agreed that it would be a waste of the day not to head on over to the second hill.  Our short day had just turned into a considerably longer one.

Enjoying the views from the West Highland Way

Enjoying the views from the West Highland Way

Getting over to Meall Teibh involved continuing along our present ridge for a further kilometre or so before a steep descent to a broad lonely bealach between the two hills.  A beautiful little loch lies here below the steep sides of the two hills and other than the shrill calls of some birds on the loch and an occasional buzz of an insect; it was completely quiet and incredibly peaceful.  The steep haul up on to Meall Teibh reminded me why I’d planned a short easy day ….my legs complained something rotten, but before long we were sat by another pile of rocks marking the second little summit of the day ….two hours from top to top.

Evening sunlight ....the West Highland Way

Evening sunlight ….the West Highland Way

We now had a lengthy walk back, first along the length of Meall Teibh to reach the small road by the Inveroran Hotel, and then back by way of the West Highland Way to Bridge of Orchy.  It was a lovely walk back though especially as by this time the dark cloud was breaking somewhat and there were patches of bright evening sunlight to enjoy.  We got back to the car about 19.45 …..we’d planned to be back in Irvine eating an evening meal by then ….but what the heck; we’d had a wonderful long short walk.

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A short piece about very little….but with one bit of good news.

Posted by admin on May 3rd, 2012
'Misty morning, Goat Fell from near Brodick'

'Misty morning, Goat Fell from near Brodick'

Some weeks are I guess, like this. Not much has happened really. We’ve not been away walking anywhere and have spent much of the time working. The thing is, I haven’t actually finished any paintings, or got any to a stage that I’d really want to show at the moment! But painting, (at least for me) is like that. Sometimes I just have to keep plodding on even if it does mean for the best part of a week, painting the wrong colours, putting the paint down in the wrong place and generally making a bit of a mess of things. I say to myself that this is where I learn but when I stand back and look at what I’ve done over the last few days, I’m not really sure if I’m convincing myself let alone anyone else. One thing though, is that I do know I will work my way through this little period and it’s so much easier working through it when you have a studio to work in.

'Heavy showers, October, Beinn Inverveigh'

'Heavy showers, October, Beinn Inverveigh'

Before I got this studio at the Courtyard, I was working from a room in the house. This was fine while the work was going well, but when I hit a difficult period like I have this week; it suddenly became even more difficult. What I mean is that when you’re working at home you can easily get distracted. You find that the thought of doing the washing or cleaning the bathroom, is far more interesting than tackling the problem of a difficult painting …..and so you put it off. When you have a studio and you know you’re down there for the day …well, there’s nothing for it but keep on plodding on …and on …and maybe swearing a little or throwing the paintbrush down in disgust …but you are confronting the problem and that is the important thing I think. This reminds me though, that we currently have several spaces available for rent at the Courtyard Studios in Irvine ….so, if you’re someone living in the area that has been thinking about getting a studio …why not come down and have a look at what’s available? You can check out details by contacting WASPS …see the link to their website at the side of this page.

'On the east ridge of Ben Lui, spring'

'On the east ridge of Ben Lui, spring'

So then, not much to report from my studio but I have just seen that Blairmore Gallery near Dunoon is to be re opening again shortly. Sadly one of the owners was seriously assaulted earlier this year and so they’ve been unable to open this year so far. Anyway, as I say, the good news is that he is now on the road to recovery and according to their website they’ll be back open in a few weeks time. They currently have three or four of my paintings but once I’m back from our trip I’ll see if I can arrange to go up and collect the old work and leave four of the new post card sized paintings for them. If you can get along once they’re open it will as I’ve said in the past, make for a good time. As well as having a good range of work, they also do excellent coffee and food. If you go along before I change the work over you’ll get to see the three paintings shown here. Check out the link to the Blairmore Gallery website on the right hand side of this page for the exact date they reopen. Best of luck to Steve, Sylvia and Bex ….don‘t work too hard but I hope you have a very good summer season. See you all soon.

Posted in Exhibitions, Information Updates, Scottish Mountains Tags: , , , , , , , , , No Comments »

A change for the better

Posted by admin on February 3rd, 2011
'Heavy weather, October, Beinn Inverveigh'

'Heavy weather, October, Beinn Inverveigh'

Ever since I first picked up a paint brush I’ve been told time and time again …‘don’t go back to a painting once it is finished’.   Everyone, it seems, knows this, but I’m not sure quite how many people who paint actually adhere to this….come on,….it’s just too tempting isn’t it!

There really can’t be that much worse than seeing one of your finished paintings …and then realising that you’d conned yourself when you put it into a frame…….you’d got caught up in the moment and simply allowed your ego to take over.  You know what its like …you’re painting away late into the evening and its all going well.  You’re happy, you’ve got your music blasting out and before you know it, you’re thinking the painting on the easel in front of you is the best thing you’ve ever done, in fact, it’s possibly a mini masterpiece!  You wash your brushes and waltz about the studio on a real high ..and leave for home planning your acceptance speech for the Turner Prize!!  Of course, when you return in the morning eager to reacquaint yourself with the previous evenings work …all is not so good.  In fact, all is far from good.  All is really dreadful.  The colours are insane, the composition simply appalling and quite just how you failed to notice the piece of kitchen towel stuck to the paint in the top left corner …well, it just beggars belief!  Where had the masterpiece that was surely to lead to fame and fortune, gone?  Had someone entered the studio and painted over the top of it while you were sleeping, or simply repaced it with this ill considered daub?

Over the years, I’ve had far too many disappointments like this. I’ve become rather wary of any initial excitement on my part over a new piece of work.  Now when I return in the morning I kind of sidle up to the studio door, let myself in and avoid eye contact with the previous evenings work.  By concentrating on everything but the work, I can usually put my sign out, turn on all the lights, fill the kettle and open the shutters …and sometimes even manage half a mug of coffee before taking a peek.  Then of course, if it’s ***** …I can be very casual and grown up about it.  It’s just a point on the way to a painting …not the finished item.  In this way, I’ve learnt to avoid much of the gloom that comes with realising that you’re not quite the painter you imagined you were the evening before!

This said, somehow, pieces still occasionally get under the radar and it is at this point that I have to go against that old advice …and take the painting back out of the frame and try and put things right.  The whole reason for this weeks ramble is that I’ve just completed a re-working of a painting I did about a year ago.  The painting I guess, was ok …but the problem was that I’d done the piece specifically for a show and as things sometimes happen, completed it rather too close to the exhibition deadline.  The painting came back from the framer and the work went up to the gallery straight after.  When I saw the piece at the preview I had a little bit of a panic …it looked fine  …just not finished!  If I’d allowed more time between finishing it and having it framed I’d probably have spotted it quite quickly …but I didn’t and there it was looking rather weak and letting down my other pieces.   The painting didn’t sell and so that may well tell a story in itself, but of course once back in the studio there was no way that I could simply leave the piece as it was. I was quite happy with the general composition …it just lacked any atmosphere.  The painting is based on a day in October the other year when a friend and I took a walk up the wee Beinn Inverveigh.  It was a foul day, with heavy driving rain and low clouds being blasted along by a gale force wind.  Despite the conditions we had a great little day and as we were descending the rain became more patchy and odd patches of brightness brought out the vivid autumn colours of the various grasses.

'Heavy weather, October, Beinn Inverveigh,

BEFORE

'Heavy weather, October, Beinn Inverveigh'

AFTER

After having the painting back in the studio for a couple of months I eventually decided to tackle the problem.  I spent perhaps the best part of two days painting into the original piece, using colours in thin glazes to try and bring out the misty atmosphere of that wet autumn afternoon.  I’m far happier with the piece now. It is almost the same composition but has for me, much more of the feel of that wild and wet October afternoon.  Of course, I’m wondering now whether I have the nerve to put up a ‘before’ and ‘after’ image of this work.  I think I will …comments please on my Face book page …I’ve found the delete button now, so if anyone thinks that the original version was better than the new one ….. need I say more?!

Posted in Information Updates, New Artworks, Personal Tags: , , No Comments »

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 week in the life of …

Posted by admin on January 29th, 2010

'From Beinn Inverveigh, October', Acrylic & Pastel, 2010, 60 x 60 cm

'From Beinn Inverveigh, October'

Saturday 23rd January

The main aim of the day was to try and get a painting finished.  I’ve been working on two pieces that I plan to exhibit at the Strathearn Gallery in Creiff as part of the Jolomo Awards 2009 Finalists exhibition.  This opens on Saturday 13th February and the work has to be delivered a week before.  So not long!  I’d completed the first piece the week before but this second piece was causing me a few problems.  However, before I could start painting there was the small matter of meeting the Pest control man who we’d contacted the day before after hearing some ominous scratching and movement in the studio walls and loft spaces.  It appears that while we were away from the building due to the frozen pipes, some furry friends have moved in.  Great!  By the end of the day the painting still wasn’t completed.

Sunday 24th January

So back to it again.  The painting in question is based on the view I had over to the hills of the Blackmount from the relative warmth of Rannoch Moor.  I’d been watching the bad weather through the monocular and it seemed an excellent subject for a painting.  Easier said than done sometimes but by the end of the evening I had the piece finally finished.  In the end, although it had caused me problems, I’m quite pleased with it and am looking forward to seeing it in a frame and on the wall.  Mind you, I was working on this picture for almost ten days!

'Winter, Blackmount', Acrylic & Pastel, 2010, 76 x 23 cm

'Winter, Blackmount', Acrylic & Pastel, 2010, 76 x 23 cm

Monday 25th January

Of course as I’ve said before, being a painter isn’t just about doing paintings …oh if that were only  the case.  We’ve been in the process of up-grading this website … as hopefully you’ve noticed.  Well, that of course means someone else doing the actual work on the site, but I’ve had to do quite a bit of work on the computer for this too.  The new works on the website are now shown much better with larger clearer images and more information about each painting.  So then, Monday morning started with a session on the computer, sorting images and writing details etc.  As anyone who’s visually impaired will know, using a PC can be quite time consuming and frustrating.  I use a screen magnifier mostly but of course I have to have the magnification so high I can only see a very small portion of the screen at any one time.  Suffice to say, I started work at 07.30 and by 11.00 I’d got some things done …but not much.  Added to this, my computer crashed in the middle of everything and I can honestly say it wasn’t the best starts to the day!

It did improve once down the studio and  as well as getting some interesting small drawings done I also got the painting I’d finished the day before, into it’s frame….and it looks great …he said modestly!

Tuesday 26th January

A slightly different day ….I’ve been asked by the Edinburgh based charity Autism Initiatives Scotland to become one of their patrons for a new project they’re starting in the city.   I had arranged to meet three of the people responsible for setting up and running the project, and to learn more of it and about my role as a patron.  More in detail in another blog but suffice to say that the project involves creating a working gallery through which people affected by autism can undertake apprenticeships in both the creative business sides of the gallery.  The meeting went very well and later we were taken to see the building that is to be the gallery.  It’s a wonderful building in a superb location in the heart of the gallery district on the edge of the city centre.  I’m very excited and delighted to have been asked to be involved in it.  Back in Irvine by 17.30 …and back on the computer for several more hours.

Wednesday 27th January

After another lengthy session on the computer, this time working on information requested by the Scottish Arts Circle, I then received an email from Germany informing me that I’d been selected for the 2010 Speyer Artists Scholarship.  Wow!  I’d applied back in January last year and didn’t really hold out much hope …but there you go ..if you don’t apply …etc etc.  More details in another blog …but basically it means I’ll be living and working in a purpose built house and studio in the centre of the historic and beautiful city of Speyer for the four months May – August.  What a great opportunity and chance to export a little bit of contemporary Scottish landscape painting into Europe.   Despite the elation at hearing this news, it was back to the studio and work through to 20.00.

Thursday 28th January

A whole day on the computer …getting images ready and sent to the Strathearn Gallery for their website.  Also a CV and statement. Emails to read, emails to answer.  We’ve just set up a link with Facebook and already have 20 plus fans (are you one?).  I finished my marathon session on the computer (about 10 hours and boggled eyes) by trying to learn my way around the Facebook website … I’m feeling a bit old!

Friday 29th ..today

Well, it’s 09.30 and I’ve been working at this keyboard for the last two hours.  Almost finished here so I plan to get a full days painting in.  Nita will pick me up when she finishes work at 20.00 …and then I think we’ll both deserve a pint!  Signing off … a rather frazzled artist!

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