Oil on collaged canvas, 100 x 100 cm
Title a complete steal from a book I bought around the time I was finishing this, by Rosalind Belben. Note no question mark. I like the idea of beauty as opposed to goodness. is my painting beautiful? Is my painting good? The title is provocative.
And another snake, symbolic of so many things.
Oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm
The title is from Seamus Heaney’s poem Postscript.
“The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,”
I am not sure if my swans are earthed lightning, but swans always blow my heart open. On the Loch of Lindores where I used to walk once a month after picking up my dog’s food, there is a flock of swans which light up the reflections of hill and sky.
Oil on canvas, 15 x 15 cm
the painting came from this sketchbook drawing. Lots of laying paint on and scraping it off again.
Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 cm
I have boxes full of these little sketchbooks. Another view of East Lomond.
Oil on panel, 15 x 20 cm
from the sketchbook I was drawing in on walks in 2022, a walk from Markinch via Star Moss and round in a big loop, with views of East Lomond hill from the south.
oil on collaged canvas, 120 x 100 cm
I worked out the composition for a lot of this by making a tiny drypoint from the original sketchbook drawing I did 18 months ago. Then the canvas itself suggested elements as I allowed myself to play with the paint, and kept the bottom section which is how the canvas was, very abstract after several layerings, before before I started the final composition.
one of the layers
one of the drypoint prints, approximately 6 x 4 inches.
Kayaking under Scots Pines, oil on wood panel 50 x 50 x 5 cm.
A really chunky cradled panel, and the painting extends around the sides.
I have been playing around with a theme of kayaking from old family photos of my grandfather and my dad and his brothers on a North Norfolk beach in the 1930’s, combining it with the Findo Gask landscape, the day-moon and this rose pink and green colour combination. Getting more tropical though I think those are Scots pine trees … runny paint and reflections of all kinds.
Returning to Findo Gask, oil on plywood panel 30 x 30 cm. Day moons and kayaks and trees have been my happy place and I have been painting solidly.
Kayak in a Landscape, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm
Kayaking in the Lochan at Findo Gask After the Storm, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm
Day Moon and Kayak, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm.
Lots of watery reflection and the lochan growing bigger in this version.
You can see two really small paintings of this subject in the small paintings pages.
oil on wood panel, 2026, 12.5 x 18 cm
to paint these tiny pictures, I hold them in my left hand, so they are very intimate. The panels have been knocking around in my studio for a while with various undercoats on them, waiting for just the right subject. I love the Findo Gask landscapes, and seeing Samoan paintings of canoes brought old family photos of my grandfather and my father and his brother as teenagers kayaking on the North Norfolk beach in the ’30s to mind.
oil on wood panel, 2026, 12.5 x 18 cm
So I arranged for there to be enough water in front of the trees. This pink is a new colour I got from Michael Harding, Opera Rose. It’s stunning, a little bit tropical.
oil over acrylic on collaged canvas 120 x 100 x 4 cm
I noticed how Bims blended into the dry beech leaves on our walk from Rhynie on our Aberdeenshire holiday, so this is a memory painting with a little help from photos. We stopped for flask tea on the edge of the lane. It only rained a little that day, we got quite a bit of sunshine – poetic licence!