Acrylic and gold mica flakes on canvas, 50 x 50 cm, 2022
Continuing on the theme of the waterlily lochans, using blue glazing over black and gold paint, and incorporating the gold mica flakes. The drowning leaves, water flowers.
ASSYNT
LOCHAN REFLECTION
Acrylic and linen on cradled panel, 61 x 61 cm, 2022
Tarry blacks and repeating reflection shapes in the pink and the cream. It maybe an evening loch, whatever, it is abstract and mostly about paint! Note plenty of watery runs and slurpy translucencies make it pretty definitely about water.
THE LOCHAN OF THE GREEN CORRIE
Acrylic, charcoal, paper, linen on canvas, 61 x 61 cm, 2022
The Lochan of the Green Corrie, or Lochan à Choire Ghuirm, which rather sadly, from being a remote and undiscoverable lochan (Norman MacCaig’s final request to Andrew Greig was to go and fish in this mysterious and hard to get at place) high up in Assynt, seems to have become a popular spot to fish in. It’s quite present on the internet, possibly due to Andrew Greig’s book, At the Loch of the Green Corrie. We walked part of the way to it, though our aim was the waterfall lower down. (and we didn’t even get to that). I doodled a fish into the paint with my palette knife.
ALLT À BÀTHAICH
Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 61 x 61 cm, 2022
Words scratched into the surface of this one are Allt a’ Bàthaich, the name of the burn that flows down from between the two north peaks of Quinag via waterfall after waterfall.. Scots Gaelic meaning the stream of the byre – the flatter patch of grassland under the main ridge of Quinag is called the Corrie of the byre, Choire à Bàthaich, which was a shieling, a summer grazing for cattle, and might be the reason Quinag (Cuineag) is the name of the hill itself, as it means milking pail. That is supposed to refer to its shape, but it could mean literally a place to fill your milkpail.
ACHADH A’ GHILLE BHUIDHE (THE FIELD OF THE YELLOW-HAIRED BOY)
Acrylic, paper, linen, gold mica flakes on canvas, diptych, 80 x 120 cm, 2022
the shimmer of the gold paint in this one is hard to photograph. I need to have some Gaelic lessons so I know how to pronounce these titles. But it’s all about a place, its view of the Summer Isles, its hopes, the hay harvest, the potato harvest …. in Coigach. (A’ Chòigeach’), meaning the five fields, is derived from the ancient tradition of dividing land into fifths. the five ‘fields’ being Achduart, Achnacarinan, Acheninver, Achnahaird and Achiltibuie. perhaps a bit like Irish “townlands”.
as Tim Winton says in his 2014 essay ” perhaps it’s you, the viewer, who is changed; something has stuck, something’s going on … a listening gaze. ….. open to the steady yet returning stare of a creation that groans in travail even as it feeds us.”
THE FIELD OF THE YELLOW-HAIRED BOY
Acrylic on panel, 40.5 x 40.5 cm, 2022.
The paint-over painted over – all that gold gleaming. Many layers here. The field of the yellow-haired boy, Achtiltibuie, a place not in Assynt but in neighbouring Coigach, the name derived from Achd Ille Buidhe, or I have found Achadh a’ ghille bhuidhe.
ALLT NA BRADHAN
Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 cm, 2022
The other of two small ones (acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 cm) done in one go on the table after messing up on various others. Often the practice makes perfect works! Assynt hill painting, Allt na Bradhan, meaning ‘burn of the quern(stone)’ named after one of the streams that run off Sàil Garbh (rough heel in English, heel denoting a long slope which ends a chain of peaks) so clear in that morning light, and Sàil Gorm, the blue one.
ALLT NA SAOBHAIDH MÒIRE
Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 cm, 2022
this little painting is one of a pair of preparatory sketches. The name Allt na Saobhaidh Mòire is from a stream that runs down between the two towers of Quinag. Saobhaidh Mòire means ‘Large fox-den’. Which is the name given to a large hollow on the hillside on the east side of Sàil Ghorm.
THE BLUE SLOPE
Acrylic and gold mica flakes on canvas, 50 x 50 x 4 cm, 2022
Sàil Ghorm, or the blue (heel) slope, from Quinag in Assynt, the more westerly of the two huge gable ends of the mountain that looked down at us in our lodge at Kyelsku and reflected in the loch.
