acrylic, oil and damar varnish on board, 2024, 30 x 20 cm
The depth of ancient Caledonian forest, somewhere in Perthshire, echoed in the layered depths of paint.
SMALL PAINTINGS
AM I SATISFACTORY?
oil on acrylic on cradled gesso panel, 2024, 7 x 5 ” with a tiny deer-suited figure sitting in the bandstand. The bandstand in the park (La Florida) in Vitoria-Gasteiz, that beautiful capital of the Basque country. Is she/are they singing tonight?
THINGS WHICH ARE NOT
Inspired by another poetry writing workshop – on a starry starry night – thinking about Midnight – little oil painting on board, 2024, 20 x 20 cm, – Things Which Are Not – “For I am every dead thing/In whom Love wrought new alchemy – the day’s deep midnight ” – a bit of John Donne.
TONIGHT I AM WAITING FOR YOU
oil on cradled panel, 2024, 7 x 5 inches (18 x 13 cm)
this is a park with a bandstand in the Basque capital, Vitoria-Gasteiz. It’s a beautiful city with much greenery, and this is the view from my hotel when I stayed there in autumn 2015. More or less. I love painting on this scale, the extra looseness it gives to the brushmarks is very satisfying.
TODAY I AM THINKING ABOUT
oil painting on gessoed cradled board, 2024, 8 x 6 x .8 inches, or 20 x 15 x 2 cm,
this guy has long sweptback ears, he is part of a series to do with a poem of mine – based on the story of Oisín, the Irish hero who is born as a deer when his mother is turned into one by a dark druid. The deer-boy and deer-people are populating some of these, and they inhabit a place inspired by photos I took nine years ago in France on a friend’s property and in northern Spain, in the city of Vitoria_Gasteiz, which is the capital of the Basque country.
A KNAPSACK ON MY BACK
Oil on cradled gesso board, 2024, 19 x 16 cm.
I started using oil paint again early this year and tried it quite runny and gloopy on this one, not quite under control. The same two figures and the little white dog are in the large painting Footnotes in the Singing Wood, done just after completing this.
LOOK I AM CHOSEN AS A BEAR
Acrylic on a cradled board. 2023, 20 x 25 cm or 8 x 10 inches
KITH
KITH, 2023, acrylic and pencil on cradled gesso board, 25.4 x 20.3 x 1.9 cm.
One of my lost in the forest series with a horned figure, or are they just wearing a hat with ears? Related to “Sometimes that holy feeling met me in the forest”. The trees are from a walk earlier this year in woodland in Murthly, near the Tay in Perthshire. There are several layers on this, it was not easy to resolve.
The edges are painted blue, and it doesn’t need a frame. If it were framed, a floating wooden tray frame with plenty of space would allow the blue edges to sing.
KEMPT
Acrylic on canvas-covered board, 2023, 30 x 30 cm. Example frame only.
On Lucklaw hill in North Fife there is a lovely wilderness of mixed trees and heath, some of it almost seems like Old Caledonian forest with blaeberry and Scots pine. There are larch growing naturally and large birch trees. On the way down off the top there are several large beech and sycamore with divided trunks making shady bare places with multiple branches and deep canopy. Here you might meet a roe deer.
