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West Highlands | Scottish Landscape Art - Scottish Landscape Paintings

Posts Tagged ‘West Highlands’

East vs. West?

 Not quite the sunny east, but better than the west ...Tinto.


Not quite the sunny east, but better than the west …Tinto.

As you may have read on my Face Book page we’d planned to get out for a walk on Wednesday.  The forecast had been really quite good for the west Highlands that day, with low wind speeds, predominantly dry, reasonably high cloud and some sunshine.   We’d decided that we’d drive up to Tyndrum and walk Meall Odhar, a small hill that rises immediately to the west of the village and should on a fine day, offer great views into Cononish Glen and across to the bigger hills around it.  We’d walked this hill a good number of years ago with our friend Guy.  Quite when exactly (8 / 9 years ago perhaps) I can’t quite remember.  If you’re reading this Guy perhaps you can let me know.  Guy is far more organised than me and keeps a log of all the walks and climbs he does.  He did give me a copy of the spread sheet he designed for the purpose so that I could keep my own record …but of course  I never quite managed to keep it going after an initial bout of enthusiasm and now I’m working full time on the painting ….well I have a good excuse!  Anyway, the day the three of us all went to Meall Odhar it was pretty miserable weather. ….very low dark cloud and rain.  Needless to say that we didn’t see anything as we plodded our way up through dripping trees and then followed the steep zigzagging path up through the old lead mine to reach the open hillside.  It was, that day, a very damp walk but I’ve often thought that it’d be well worth going back on a fine winter day ….hence our plans for Wednesday

These plans however, were based on a forecast I’d seen on Monday morning and unfortunately after getting back late from my studio that evening, I’d forgotten to check the new forecast which is issued early evening each day.  The original forecast had suggested that Tuesday wouldn’t be good weather, but on Tuesday morning I found myself admiring the garden from the back door ….and it was bright sunshine.  At that point it occurred to me that perhaps things had changed and Nita grabbed her Kindle and went to the forecast page.  Sure enough, now Wednesday was looking really quite grim …instead of dry and bright and calm ….it was now winds gusting 45 mph, low cloud and persistent and at times heavy rain and higher up, snow.  Ahhhhhh!   Grabbing for anything that might give us hope, we went to the Met Office forecast instead …only to be met with the same ….and  ..AND ….a ‘weather warning’.  My language at this point was not good!

Now then, my good friend Norma, who lives in Angus, has been telling me for years that she lives in the sunny east and we live in the wet west ….and in all honesty, she has a point!  We looked at the forecasts for south east Scotland and sure enough, although not brilliant, it did suggest that we’d get a reasonably dry walk  if we headed in that direction.  Nita had been working night shifts at the weekend and was doing twelve and a half hour day shifts on Thursday and Friday, so we didn’t want a huge walk or for that matter, a huge drive…..just somewhere we could get a few metres of ascent and descent into our legs and some fresh air into our lungs.  Tinto, the small but prominent little hill to the south of Lanark seemed to fit the bill and so we made our way over there instead of north to Meall Odhar.

As changes of plan go, it was a good one.  We did get our walk and we did stay dry, if a little wind blown, especially at the very top of Tinto ….and what is more, we got back to the car and out of our walking gear just five minutes before the rain making its way over from the west arrived.  Perfect timing.  It’s good to be flexible!

Journey’s end ….a commission completed successfully.

It seems quite a long way from the summit of Mam na Gualainn, (where I first met Richard) to this photograph showing the finished painting he commissioned from me, hanging on his living room wall.   The actual painting took me 5 – 6 weeks to complete but there was quite a lot to work out before I first picked up a paint brush. 

As I say, I first met Richard at the summit of Mam na Gualainn, an almost 800 m high hill rising on the north shores of Loc

An Teallach painting, framed and on the wall

An Teallach painting, framed and on the wall

h Leven in the West Highlands.  I was walking with my partner Nita and our friend Guy and we had just finished lunch and were about to head off east along the broad ridge of the hill when we spotted another walker making his way towards us  We stopped for a quick chat with him  and then continued on our ways

It must have been six or eight weeks later that I received an email from Richard introducing himself saying that he was the chap we’d met on Mam na Gualainn and that he was wondering if he could visit my studio next time he visited Scotland.  This visit took place a couple of weeks later and it was great to meet him again and to hear more about his exploits in the Scottish hills over the previous I think 40 years……very impressive.  Over this time he has not only reached the summits of all the Munros but also all the Munro tops too …. and was now in search of a painting based on the Scottish Highlands that would  perhaps sum up what he had already done as well as looking  forward to further outings.   He’d been searching for such a painting a couple of months before we’d met on Mam na Gualainn and had come across my website ……only to recognise my face on the hill  a  little later in the summer.

While visiting my studio Richard asked whether I would create a painting for him based on one of his photographs….a view from the top of Bidein a’ Ghlas Thuill on An Teallach.  Although I’d never used another persons photo as a starting point for a painting, I was intrigued by this as Nita and I had stood at the very same point on Bidein a’ Ghlas Thuil a number of years previously ….and it was certainly one of the most memorable I’ve had on a hill.

After a short time to  consider this  I agreed to try and create the painting for him.  Firstly though I needed to know the kind of painting he was looking for …..as you know, my paintings vary from almost abstract to much tighter more traditional looking landscapes.  We agreed that I would send him a CD containing  40 or 50 images covering a broad range of paintings and I asked him to look carefully through them and indicate which were the kind of paintings he most likes.  He did his homework very well and a week or so later he contacted me with a short list, along with his reasons for liking them …he pointed out certain elements that he particularly liked and made some very useful comments.  He said that he was looking for something that whilst still being recognisable as An Teallach, would  also contain bold marks and the texture that he so much liked in my paintings.

This information was really helpful and allowed me to visualise how the finished piece might look and therefore how to go about painting it.  Sounds easy doesn’t it?!  As it turned out, getting that balance proved quite difficult and in the end I probably erred more towards the recognisable.   Strangely I probably drew as much on my own memories of the day we were up there as on Richards’s original photograph …certainly for the kind of atmosphere and light.  We stood at the summit on a May day under darker skies with little if any sun.  The photograph Richard had taken showed a large area of blue sky at the top and although this made for a great image I felt it allowed the painting to drift away.  I decided instead to add a darker area of cloud at the top of the painting  ….a sort of cap to hold the eye and redirect it back down into the painting.  I think this also had the added benefit that it helped enhance the feeling of height and scale.

I sent Richard a number of images showing the progress of the painting as well as posting a couple of them on my Face Book page, Keith Salmon – Scottish Landscape Artist.   In the end though I just sent the finished painting down to him ….no photos of it beforehand.

An Teallach painting finished and framed

An Teallach painting finished and framed

Richard asked  that I supply the painting without a frame so that he and his family could select this.  I know how different a painting can look when it is just there without a frame and so was a little worried that he may not see beyond the raw edges!  I suggested that he spent a good few days looking at it before making any decision but I shouldn’t have worried as about a week later he kindly sent me the photos of it framed and on the wall.  I have to say that I think he selected a good frame and I was very pleased with the final result ….I think Richard is too.  He told me in his last email that he’d bought it as a 60th Birthday present to himself ….so then, Happy Birthday Richard.  I hope you enjoy many more walks in the Scottish Highlands and maybe we’ll meet up again on a hill sometime.  Enjoy the painting.

Of course I can’t just leave it there …the business part of me has to spring into action now.  Should you be looking for a painting of the Scottish Highlands and be unable to find the right thing, you could  always consider commissioning a painting unique to you.  I’m always happy to consider ideas and am always up for a challenge!

‘From Beinn Inverveigh, October’

´From Beinn Inverveigh, October´

´From Beinn Inverveigh, October´

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

Back in October 2009 a friend and I visited this little hill in very bad weather.  The forecast was for persistent heavy rain and severe gales.  As it turned out, it wasn’t quite that bad and despite a drenching we had a great day that even included a short break in the conditions.  For a while the sky got brighter and the wonderful colours of the various grasses, heathers and bracken were rally intense.

Work of the Week:”On the hill, West Highlands”

'On the hill, West Highlands', acrylic-pastel-2006-30x30 Ref 37

'On the hill, West Highlands'

‘On the hill, West Highlands’, Acrylic & Pastel, 30 x 30 cm

Even in the summer you can’t avoid the bad weather in the Scottish hills and we’ve spent many a day wandering the tops in the mist. That said though, there is still something very special about the landscape when the clouds are down and moving through the hills and glens. You tend to get small areas of brightness filtering down every now and again, picking out the vivid greens of the moss and grass, or suddenly reflecting off of wet and slimy rocks higher up.

This little painting is a few years old now and to be honest I can’t remember exactly where it was based on – but it does I think capture a little of those damp warm summer days in the Highlands…..just need the midges now!