The Scotland Paintings: Studio Update
Visiting Scotland seems like a world away now that I am in the midst of a Colorado winter, but at least it gave me plenty of photos to inspire me during my cozy painting season. Here are three of my recent paintings inspired by the trip.
The Little White House
My family and I drove by the Legnagarbh Hut towards the end of our time in Scotland. We were heading through the area of Glencoe from Fort William towards Edinburgh to catch our flights back. The hut is this white house that appears tiny when compared to Buachaille Etive Mòr behind it. It is nestled next to a small patch of evergreens with a small river in front. Visiting in October, the dominant colors were golds and browns, though patches of grass would glow green when the sun would peek from behind the clouds. I chose to crop my original photograph to create an exaggerated landscape orientation so that I could use my 5.9" x 11.8" Arches cold press watercolor block. I’m proud of a lot of aspects of this painting. I love how the sky came out. Creating interesting and complex skies is hard for me and usually they come out a little wonky. Here I like the subtle blues, purples, and golds in the sky. I also love the bridge and the white house. Here’s a little behind the scenes: I messed up the bridge THREE times and the house once and still managed to fix them both. I think this might be my first candidate for making art prints. Agree or disagree?
Ascending Ben Nevis
The only real plan that Vasya and I had for Scotland was trying to hike Ben Nevis if the weather was going to cooperate. Ben Nevis is known for being in a cloud for 80% of the year. Over the course of the trip we had a lot of rain, which is normal for Scotland in the fall. During our first day or two in Fort William, the summit shrouded behind clouds, but the morning we set out to hike was crisp and clear, so crisp that we had our first morning of frost and we started the hike by walking through mist in the valley. The reference photo for this painting was taken a short while into our hike, looking back on the valley, before the sun burned off the mist. I would call this painting a dud in all honesty, but I did practice a couple new things. I wasn’t sure how to capture mist in a valley, where you can see a bit of what is behind the mist. I didn’t quite accomplish it, but it was a good experiment. I also wanted to try and paint what I’m calling brambles on the side of the hill. I used my liner brush, which has much longer bristles to create very thin lines. Again I wasn’t thrilled with how the brambles came out overall, but I think it did create a different effect than my regular brushes.
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Glenfinnan Light
One of the absolute highlights of the Scotland trip was seeing the Glenfinnan Viaduct. For any Harry Potter fans, this is the iconic railway viaduct that the Hogwarts Express travels across throughout the movies. As a fan of the Harry Potter books and the movies, I was thrilled that my mom got us tickets to ride on the Jacobite steam train from Fort William to Mallaig and back, a trip that crosses the famous viaduct. A more impromptu trip to walk around the base and up to the viaduct’s viewing area to watch the train make its morning crossing was just as memorable. Despite periods of rain (a theme during the trip), there were also moments where the little valley glowed when the sun peeked through the clouds. To create this painting, I knew that capturing the light was going to be the biggest challenge. I wanted the viewer to feel like the painting was similarly glowing and I wanted to strike a balance between sections of the paintings that were detailed and sections that were more muted. This can be a challenge for me. Sometimes I try to make everything too detailed and then the viewer has nowhere to focus their attention. For this painting, I wanted the viaduct itself to be the focal point. I’m not sure I totally accomplished it, but it was certainly good practice. What do you think? I’d love to know where your eye focuses when first looking at the painting.
Which of the three paintings came out best?