It's that time of year again. A beautiful day outside today, way too nice to be painting indoors! So it's back outdoors with the sketching easel, this time getting chased up the beach by the quickly rising tide while painting a local beach on the famous sandstone shoreline of the Moray Coast. This is 'Cummingston Shoreline', watercolour, just over 13 x 9". It's great to paint in this loose style, taking my cues from the beauty of nature, with no preconceptions. What a great day!/cummingston-shoreline.html
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We're off to the beautiful Lake District this time! The Lake District is an area in the very north west of England in Cumbria, about 5 hours drive south of where I live. Only a few tens of miles in each direction, it encompasses some of the most beautiful and dramatic mountain scenery in the UK as well, of course lakes. I am biased, of course, because I grew up at the edge of the Lake District. All I know is that if I lived there again I could keep myself very happily engaged for a lifetime painting it! This is 'Ashness Bridge', a famous bridge just south of Derwent Water. Indeed, if you stand on the bridge you can see both Derwent Water and Keswick below. It's high summer here at the moment, but I was inspired to give the painting an Autumn theme by an old photograph I took of the bridge many years ago which has faded into almost sepia tint! Those who know the bridge well will notice that I have taken some liberties with the foreground area: in particular there are less rocks in this image and more grass than in real life. Rest assured, though, I've only done it for the purposes of making a beautiful composition! The painting is in my 'Inspirations Gallery'.
Sometimes my sketches take some time to be turned into finished paintings. This one took 13 years! I've revisited this sketch often, but never felt able to commit to a painting as I never worked out how to give it enough atmosphere to make it special. Then, recently, I was thinking of painting a sunset and the sketch came to mind! The original sketch included the whole of the coastline, out of the picture to the right, but I didn't want too much land in the image, preferring to concentrate on the sky and, to a lesser extent, the sea colours. I've therefore concentrated on just the headland, and I moved the closest spit of rock from its real position so that it would enter this picture. I set out to create a scene dripping in atmosphere, and I'm happy with the results! For me, this image has an almost hypnotic quality - it's still on my board as I write as I am reluctant to remove it. These scenes are difficult to photograph and, after many efforts, this is the best photo I can achieve. But it doesn't do the painting justice: in the flesh, the whole paining glows and almost creates an aura around the distant headland. This one will be difficult to part with!
 What a great job this is! The weather here is pretty bad for summer time and I couldn't get out to paint. So I pulled out a sketch I'd made recently and decided to create a beautiful day - and just because I love snow scenes I decided to put snow on the ground! That's the beauty of painting: this is the world as I want it to be right now, and I can just make it happen!
This is 'A Walk by the Spey', watercolour, 11 x 8". It depicts part of the Speyside Way walk where it passes close to my home at Fochabers in Moray, northern Scotland. The river is actually in flood just now, but here it's tranquil and reflective of the clear, colourful sky. The viewer is led into the painting along the partially snow-covered path, and gets to look at the trees along the way. I wish I was there in the painting right now!! I love this job! It's summer time and I need to move some paintings on to make room for more. So I'm having a sale! Hopefully this will make my works more affordable to more people, which is great! I am now selling for some 60% more than when I started less than a year ago, so this represents a chance to make a sound investment in my signatured, original works for a limited period. This sale will end at the end of September 2014, so if you like them, get them quick! I have reduced the price of more than half of my paintings by up to 30% for this sale, so please dive on in and see what's available. The image below, 'Bow Fiddle Rock', is one of those included in the sale. Enjoy! 
 Isn't it strange how, when we're a child, the world of nature on a small scale is so close to us, but we lose this fascination as we grow up? We're so busy looking around and up we forget to look down! And there's a whole world down there. This is 'Magic Everywhere', watercolour, 18 x 12" (40 x 30cm). It's a study, inspired by a photograph my daughter took in our wildlife garden, of a few inches of this little world at our feet. The clover and daisies poke up through a tangle of new Hawthorn tree growth which creeps its way along the ground. If you've not got down on your hands and knees and enjoyed the beauty which can be found down there - I strongly recommend giving it a go - I've been doing little else for the past few days!
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AuthorA professional artist living and working in the beautiful north of Scotland. My work is realistic and quite traditional, though strongly interpretational in nature. My inspiration is the beauty of Nature, and the wonderful colours and moods she shows everywhere. Archives
April 2025
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