New Series in the making...
I've been spending a lot of time this summer driving around Scotland delivering paintings, and have been using these trips as an excuse to explore the beautiful, often-deserted hills and glens of the Highlands, from the Trossachs to the Cairngorms, Glen Affric to the Sma' Glen. I take every opportunity to roam these dramatic and desolate places, with my dog, Rollo, bouncing along beside me.
I wander without any particular aim, absorbing the summer colours and considering how the light touches the land. When I return to my studio in Edinburgh, I try to capture it. I look at the pictures I've taken on my phone, but mostly I work from the pictures in my mind, from imperfect, emotional memory.
I recently went camping with my sister in the Cairngorms, climbing various hills and swimming in various lochs over a few days. The weather was mostly good and the light glorious. This trip inspired me to work on a new style and a new series of paintings this summer. I wanted to capture the feeling of that moment when you reach the top of a Munro and you turn around to look back at the landscape you've just climbed through - that sudden moment of perspective when the land drops away from you and shapes itself into a picture.
