I’ve always painted nature. From flat watercolour animals on printer paper to my first experiment on canvas with horses (I haven’t saved these first terrible attempts). Animals were comforting, David Attenborough made them come to life on screen. I felt that by painting them, somehow I could experience their wonder for myself.
Landscape painting had always been secondary. Always left until the last, often painted quite hurriedly and with little careful execution. A landscape was a few hues, a background colour to the canvas’ protagonist.
Of course, some paintings called for epic scenes and beautiful vistas. And I would give them more attention, carving snow out of mountains with a palette knife, or fighting with aerial perspective.
My first real encounter with the natural world was one of the most spectacular. Rugged, desolate Patagonia, with its tales of summer blizzards, biting fog, pumas and the ghostly guanacos. This icy southern landscape of sheer granite torres and brilliant blue glacial lakes left an impression on me that took hold instantly and never left. Though nature was to be found in the Chilean steppe: from geese to guanacos, cormorants and crows, it was the landscape that was the star of the show. I’ve written many times before about the wondrous transformation of the landscape from the grey-scarred, misty realms of distant planets to the warmest buttercup yellow grasses and brilliant blue-grey mountaintops. What I discovered in Patagonia was not the place, but the light within it.
I sketched and painted what I could while we were there, but looking back there are many more sketches I wish I’d done. I long to go back with my canvases and acrylics and paint the epic views. I captured some of my favourite memories in paint, and am still struck by the impact this place had on me in just a few short days.
I think this is probably where my shift towards landscape painting started. It was practicality at first: most of the scenes I wanted to paint were desolate, devoid of wildlife. Secondly, the landscapes themselves were so varied, and so unlike anything I’d known.
In between, there were several years of cosmic paintings: natural and unnatural scenes of nebulae, the Milky Way and more coupled with birds, hills and cherry blossoms.
Then there was covid. And my art took a dramatic downsize. Forced to remain indoors and unable to paint in oils due to the early stages of pregnancy, I sold a good chunk of my painting supplies. I switched to little watercolours, and honestly, nothing really happened in those two years between 2020 and 2022. Art naturally took a back seat.
Finally, four years after I’d first envisioned a solo painting trip (original destination – Hallstatt in Austria), it felt like it was time. Fairly spontaneously and slightly out of character, I booked a trip and figured I’d worry about the details later.
But this wasn’t the carefree, outdoor holiday I’d originally hoped for. Life, inevitably, gets in the way, and just 48 hours before I was due to fly. But fly I did. Completely alone, I seamlessly (surprisingly) got my plane to Edinburgh.
My first impression of Edinburgh – a gloomy, umber coloured castle, beautifully juxtaposed between a frame of the season’s first cherry blossoms. The signs were good. Though a little part of me felt confused, nervous. I was alone, and that was a strange feeling. It was quiet, almost too quiet at first.
It wasn’t until I ventured into the highlands that I felt relaxed, discovered the power of this place, and just how powerful the landscape can be. A photograph can capture the structure and form of the place, but it cannot capture the senses. Video may capture some of the sounds, like the running water, wind and distance sounds of unknown fauna. Music can completely transform the soul of a place. Visit your favourite place, or if you can’t, find images of it, and look at them coupled with your favourite piece of music, a solemn piano piece, a dramatic film score. Each time, the landscape will reveal itself a little more.
A poignant moment for me was listening to Dougie MacLean’s classic Auld Lang Syne, as the tram pulled into the airport parkway, and I realised that my short time in this beautiful place was over. The song usually jubilantly played at New Year, bidding farewell to old friends had new meaning. I was saying goodbye to Edinburgh, to Scotland, but I also felt like I left a little of myself there, just like I did in Patagonia.
Is this how Cezanne felt about Montagne Sainte-Victoire or how Monet experienced Giverny and his visits to the Étretat coastline? I think so.