Acrylic, pigment, marble dust, cold wax, oil and oil stick on canvas, 50 x 50 x 4 cm, 2022

The geology of paint – the Gaelic (Gallic) name of the disappearing burn, Allt nan Uamh, layers of cold wax and raw pigment then words scratched into the surface of this one, covering up, revealing, and scratching into it with a palette knife.

Acrylic, paper, marble dust, charcoal, oil stick, cold wax on canvas, 50 x 50 cm, 2022

“walking to the bone caves”, a bit of a theme – or even the Gaelic (Gallic) name of the disappearing burn, Allt nan Uamh, the stream of the Caves, both scratched into the surface of this one, which I worked into with cold wax medium and oil paint and zest thinners. wiping off, scraping off, drawing into it with pigment sticks. For information about the bone caves see my blog all about our stay in Assynt, in the far north west of Scotland.

Acrylic, charcoal, cold wax, marble dust, mica flakes, oil and oil stick on canvas, 80 x 70 x 4 cm

the title is from the OS map, the pass between the peaks of Quinag. Bealach means pass, Chornaidh stony.

trying to keep the feeling of the preliminary work on paper, but remembering all that Lewisian Gneiss, the gritty twisted rock with its nooks and crannies, the tiny special flowers, mosses and ferns we found.

Acrylic, water soluble graphite and charcoal on panel, diptych, 2022, 76 x 152 cm.

My title is from a piece of landscape in Assynt, below the big corrie in the main wall of the hill called Quinag, or in Gaelic, Cuineag, meaning the milking pail. BÀTHAICH is a byre, and this piece of land was a shieling, or a summer pasture, from the days when the people of Assynt would take their cattle up to clean fresh pasture high up for the summer, and there they would make or repair bothies to sleep in, and live quite a different, free and light-hearted kind of life, making butter and cheese from the milk. This is before the Highland clearances of course.