Scottish Landscape Art – Scottish Landscape Paintings

It’s been a decidedly busy few weeks, not least with getting everything ready for going to Speyer on May 11^th. But the work at the studio has still been going on and on Tuesday after one small disaster (more of this in a minute) we took seven pieces of work up to the Atholl Gallery in Dunkeld for their forthcoming Spring Exhibition starting this Saturday 17^th April.

'Rannoch Moor, sketch'

I’d selected the pieces I’d use for the show a while back and this included four very new works, just completed. One of these is a small new drawing….’Rannoch Moor –sketch’ and this is one of a number of very simple pastel line drawings I’ve been doing. These are worked from the fast pen sketches I do out on the hill but they are done in a mid grey oil pastel on a gesso board. I leave the surface of the gesso quite rough and this gives the pastel line a slightly broken appearance that I particularly like. The finished drawing is then varnished with a matt varnish and the final piece has an interesting appearance….something slightly akin to the pastel mono-prints I used to do many years ago. As I said, the piece included in this show is only small but is I think quite a strong little image. I’ve started working on a couple of bigger drawings done in the same way and am quite excited by the potential …..possibly using this way of drawing (but on a really big scale) when over in Speyer. Watch this space as they say!

I also included a larger upright piece in the selection. This painting, ‘Moon and frozen crag, Beinn an Dothaidh’ has never been properly framed before although I completed it a number of years ago. I’ve had it in my studio though and it has received a lot of attention. It’s tall thin shape also attracted me to it for this show as it would allow me to show a larger piece without it taking up too much space – this painting is currently the ‘Artwork of the week’ on my website.

'Late winter afternoon, west Highlands'

The other paintings I planned to take included two of my new long thin 76 x 23 cm pieces, two of the 30 x 30 cm pieces and a small 12.5 x 12.5 cm painting. The selection seemed to work well …then disaster struck! On Monday evening as I was wrapping the paintings for the journey to the gallery, I managed to knock one of the 76 x 23 cm pieces. As anyone who has seen my work in galleries will know, I tend to use a simple distressed ‘York’ silver frame with most of my paintings. These look good and work well with the rather scratchy, scribbled nature of my work – but, these frames are almost impossible to repair if damaged. So, there I was with a frame with a dint in it and no replacement frame of the right size….aaah! At this point I’m pleased to say, I remained calm although it was probably good that no-one was in the studio at the time. I usually keep a number of framed works at the studio and so had to choose a different piece now. I went for another upright piece, ‘Where sky and moor-land meet’. This is a more abstract piece as it is based on the bands of colour you sometimes experience when on the hill. I think that this piece will work well with the others but as it was such a late substitution, I’ll only know when I see the work on the wall.

'On Beinn a' Ghlo, autumn'

The gallery holds an informal preview on Saturday morning / afternoon, so Anita and I are planning to go along. We’ve decided to make a day of it and take the train rather than do the two and a half hour drive up there and back again. From the station, it’s about a mile walk into the village, crossing the wide and very majestic River Tay by a beautiful bridge. After seeing the show, I think it’ll be time for a late lunch and a pint of real ale at a pub overlooking the river…..I think we’ll both deserve that!

The exhibition runs from April 17^th – June 7^th 2010