Artist in Scotland (was on the Isle of Skye, now in Aberdeenshire)
Yesterday I caught the ferry from Uig to Tarbert to deliver a painting, being met at the terminal because the ferry turns around rapidly, 20 minutes between scheduled arrival and departure. It was a nary-a-cloud-in-the-sky day with glorious sunshine, albeit wish-I’d-remembered-my-gloves cold.
This is the painting:
It’s that time of year again when the sun’s moved north and is setting past the tip of the Waternish peninsula and late (about 9pm) making for hours of enticing patterns and colours on the expanse of the Minch (sea between Skye and Harris). My fingers have been itching to paint it again (see Moods of the Minch catalogue). Here are a few work-in-progress photos, canvas size 120x60cm.
Inspired by this winter’s storms and the non-arrival of spring. The paint is still drying in places where it’s particularly thick, so to remove the temptation of poking at it (“Are you dry yet…?!“) it’s now propped on the bookshelves in the in-house art critic’s office.
Popped into Skyeworks Gallery this afternoon to drop off a few Wearable Art pieces and some cards, only to discover the “Moon Over the Minch” had sold this morning. That’s two big paintings in two days! And, yes, I did celebrate with a piece of cake in the bakery downstairs.
These three small studies of the colours of the Minch, looking cross towards Harris, were done on 300gsm rough watercolour paper, three sheets placed alongside one another on a large board on my easel. The differences between them aren’t dramatic, but rather they’re studies focusing on the effect of small things, changes made after the initial laying in of colours of possibilities I want to consider. Here they are side by side for easy comparison:
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I don’t have a favourite overall, there are pieces from each I will use in a larger painting at some point.
I’ve been painting on a small scale again, on 7×5″ canvas (about 18x12cm). These two “mini Minch” seascapes are a memory of some of the wild weather I’ve watched blow across the view, where white horses churn up deep Prussian blue. Available from Skyeworks Gallery, ?35 each.
