AN ARTIST, IN SEARCH OF THE PICTURESQUE, FOUND SKETCHING BY A SEARCH AND RESCUE DOG

An artist, in search of the Picturesque,
 found sketching by a search and rescue dog.
76cms x 102cms. Oil on canvas

Back in March 2016 high pressure was sitting over the British Isles bringing haar and cloud to the east coast. However, I knew the west was bathed in sunlight and drove  there on a sketching trip to Glencoe.

All the way to Tyndrum the clouds were down on the hills but as I started the descent to Bridge of Orchy the clag pulled apart like a vast theatrical curtain to reveal the sun bathed moors and glistening snow fields on the high tops.

I spent a couple of nights at the Red Squirrel campsite and visited a few spots that I knew would give me good views. The hills were at their scenic best and I was very happy.

I was sitting sketching Kingshouse Inn with the snow covered Creish hills in the background when a sparky Collie dog pranced up and started barking at me. I wasn't worried as I knew this was an attention, not an aggressive bark. The dogs owner came running up

"I'm sorry. She's just telling me she's found you."

"I didn't know I was lost."

"She's a search and rescue dog. We're up here for the annual Search and Rescue Association tests."

"Good luck."

Over the next few years I used these sketches to make oil paintings. This is fairly recent behavior. In fact, I've spent a considerable amount of time wandering in the Scottish hills avoiding making paintings of them. Landscape painting, especially of mountains, is all tied up with the Romantic and Sublime, which often descends into cliché. I overcame this reluctance by wanting to make paintings as if I was an explorer, the first to visit and make an image of a place that none had seen before.

 In a country that over thousands of years has been hunted out, deforested, over grazed, farmed, fought over, industrialised, painted, mapped, photographed, pierced by roads and railways and with thousands of tourists crawling all over it, is this possible? Probably not, but it is better to try and see what I can make of it. It can't be wrong to paint what I love.

Creish hills from Kingshouse Inn
Mixed media on paper, 38 x 56cms.

The artist in search of the Picturesque sits bemused in the corner of the canvas. The collie dog barks as it's owner runs up to put it on the lead. Walkers pass on the West Highland Way and the wonderful Creish hills have disappeared. Kingshouse Inn has sprouted a wind turbine and traffic thunders along the A82. Pylons stride across the moor from hydro dams.

This painting, then, is a prophecy, one that I hope never comes to pass.