Work on Display - at Highland Love'Arts

I just thought I'd do a little blog post about a little gem of a shop that's opened in the next town - and where I'm pleased to say you can find a good selection of my work for sale.

Dornoch Cathedral

Dornoch is a completely charming little place, when the honey and rose-coloured stone glows on a summer evening it's just magical. Famed for it's golf course, it has an attractive cathedral, a castle that you can stay in (it's a hotel) and one of the loveliest beaches around. Its streets team with tourists, and with interesting shops selling books and baked goods, venison and honey antiques and newspapers, bras to Barbour.

The High Street Dornoch

The welcoming shop front at Highland Love'Arts

Along the High Street, facing the north door of the Cathedral is a brand new little Aladdin's Cave called Highland Love'Arts. Just opened a few weeks ago it aims to champion local arts and crafts, along with offering a smattering of antique treasures, Highland gifts, and an already popular baby and toddler clothes agency.

Vintage and crafted jewellery in a period cabinet

Hand crafted tartan corsages

As you walk in the door a woodburning stove greats you with a cheery glow, and the whole shop has a warm and welcoming feel.

The friendly hearth

Wonderful, locally made knitted, sewn and felted bags, amongst other giftware

Handmade teddies peek of out baskets and boxes

Word has been getting out to local creatives, and the shops been rapidly filling up with home-made teddy bears, scarves, bags, corsages, paintings and prints, and all manner of treasures...

Artwork, tweed and woolen goodies create an eclectic but complimentary display

Friendly proprietor, Geraldine Aust, has also actively been seeking out locals with talents and skills to commission special pieces she has particularly wanted to feature. One such happy arrangement came after a fruitful search for a locally based, talented sewer - and the production of these gorgeous wedding ring cushions were the result. She's currently seeking someone handy with crochet hooks for another such project...

Handmade ring cushions

The shop hopes to offer a good selection of items for those getting wed, or having babies christened in the cathedral, which is just a few steps away. A happy marriage, you might say, of business and location. Later in the year the second phase of business will fire into action - a gorgeous, boutique B&B, including one extra special suite with just perfect for a brides wedding preparations, or honeymoon night. Also space for receptions and celebrations, or private dining.

Cute display of the most gorgeous christening dresses

The shop displays a wide range of artwork, and the largest wall has been given over entirely to a gallery of work by artists from around the Northern Highlands. Local scenes nestle with arty nudes, and famous castles hang by glowing angels.

At the time of typing this is the largest selection of my own work hanging in any one location. There's quite a selection of my angel paintings currently on display - and for a very special reason, which I'll hopefully be able to tell you more about soon (so ready those diaries if you are up for a creative and nurturing retreat adventure!).

Gorgeous light streaming across some of my paintings

Just part of the gallery wall

If you are in the area, do take some time to discover this wonderful little shop, which is blossoming into something rather special even as we speak.

Web Links...

Highland Love'Arts website (currently being developed and expanded, so worth bookmarking) - http://www.highlandlove-arts.co.uk/

Carinhill B&B, Therapies and Retreats - http://www.cairnhillbandb.co.uk/

An Orkney Sketchbook - Part 4

The Stenness Stones

Also within 'The Neolithic Heart of Orkney' are the Stenness Stones, what's left of the mighty rocks of an arrangement of 10 or 12 stones, once with an impressive henge around. It's been suggested that this was a horseshoe or incomplete circle of stones.

You'll see by the stance of my, usually very hardy, son that on our first visit to the stones it was pretty chilly! I was the only one who stayed out of the car for more than a few minutes.

The main problem I had - repeatedly - at this is site was that the direction the weather was coming in from was directly behind me if I sat in the most obvious spot to paint - meaning head turning and glancing behind every few moments to make sure I didn't get surprised by a great wetting from above! I must say it meant by sketching was frequently out too, not being able to stare at the subject concentratedly.

As you can see from this A1 sized mixed media piece I didn't quite manage to run to the car on this occasion - although I have to say, perhaps oddly, that this is maybe my favourite painting of the whole trip. Although technically a bit of a disaster, it says so much about the trip and my experiences. And I rather like the texture the rain has created!

I managed to catch a lovely sunset at Stenness one evening. The photos don't really do it justice, it was much lovelier and more vibrant in real life, but I didn't want to waste time playing with the camera and miss the chance to paint it.

This was the painting I made at the time - 12 x 24", acrylic on canvas. Again running out of time as the light faded fast I ended up having to scratch the final fine detail into the still wet paint with a fine palette knife. I'm not sure how I feel about the clouds in this - it was such a rushed painting experience, only a few minutes to record what I was seeing, and I was sat in almost darkness, guessing, by the end, as I hadn't thought to grab a torch. I've had some nice comments about it though.

Another colour sketch where I got caught out by a downpour chasing up behind me - strange eerie light making the yellows and greens in the landscape shine an acidic colour, and the grey of these stones shine a greenish shade.

Being around for the full moon was great, and whilst I was just too chilled to sit painting, I managed to spend some time with the moon, soaking the atmosphere up, and got some useful shots.

Back in the studio, I'm already working with these photos. I've just completed a 16 x 16" canvas with acrylics - a bit experimental, I worked most of the painting in one go, covering the canvas with a deep blue colour (much more true to my experience of the night than the long exposure coveys in the photos) and scratching in the detail quickly with an old dip pen nib. Reusing that technique I had to use on the island to speed my work in the cold conditions.

By far the best photos of the place from the trip though were taken by my husband, in the full moon. I lightly Photoshoped one of these photos, and used it to paint this acrylic (16 x 20" canvas). I'm really pleased that I was able to let go and keep the looseness I had been forced to use on the trip when working fast and trying to keep fingers from ceasing. I was very worried once back I would tighten back up, but it now seems entirely possible to keep it all wild and woolly and in spirit with the place and my experience of it.

An Orkney Sketchbook - Part 3

The Watchstone

Just at the beginning of the road causeway between the Stones of Stenness, a few cottages, and the Ring of Brodgar is a huge monolith called The Watchstone, about 19 feet tall. I say it again, but if this were one stone, on it's own, in a field, almost anywhere else people would stand beneath it in awe at it's sheer size and weighty presence, and it's powerful position watching passage along the causeway - but here it almost becomes lost amongst the splendour of stones stones everywhere.

It has to be said, whoever thought to put a handy wee pull in in tarmac next to the road and it really saved my bacon during this trip. The spot is so exposed, and it allowed me to grab camera or materials from the car, get something down, then scuttle back pronto!

It was lovely that from the roof garden of our very handy holiday flat in Stenness, we could see the Watchstone quite clearly (Brodgar was visible in clear-ish weather, but must smaller on the horizon, and the Stenness Stones hidden behind a nearby building).

The above drawing is on A1 sized watercolour paper - acrylic inks and chalk pastels. It was hugely challenging to do, as the only spot I could lay such a huge board flat (it needed to be, as if you lifted it even a little off the ground it would have taken me off like a sail!) was next to the gateway of 'Odin' (a holiday home at the site of another monolith with an interesting story, now destroyed, you can read about it on jar the excellent Orkneyjar website) at the edge of the road. You can see in the painting where the wind took the ink off my brush and splashed it everywhere!

One night I took a series of photos of the Watchstone in darkness with only the full moon for lighting. Unfortunately the one item I forgot to pack for the trip was my tripod! Being handheld the photos weren't as good as they could have been, a bit fuzzy, but plenty good enough to paint from.

Each had the moon with a slightly different arrangement of illuminated clouds around it, and some I had taken from a low angle down the bank below the base of the stone. By printing several of these pictures I was able to piece together a pleasing composition back in the studio, and so far I've completed two paintings. The first was a big A1 mixed media piece on watercolour paper - watercolour, gouache, chalk pastel.

This was for my husbands birthday, and he was pretty pleased with it I think. Just need to take it to the framers now and we're talking about hanging it in our hall I think. Nice reminder of the trip.

The second piece is a mixed media - acrylic and charcoal - on a 16 x 20" chunky canvas. I've so far not been able to find / arrange the right lighting to get a really good photo of it, but it's got many layers, a lot of ragged areas, and lines scratched into the paint. I really wanted to push, with this one, the feeling of sitting under the stone and being entirely dominated and overwhelmed by it, convey the wild wild, and also the magic of that night - it felt more than a little enchanted.

An Orkney Sketchbook - Part 2

The Ring of Brodgar

I just love this place! It always looks to me like a tilted crown on a fuzzy heather-haired head. If you visited anywhere and came across a circle like this you would be blown away, but add it's position between two lochs, the causeway crossing to reach it, the beautiful vast hollow in the landscape it occupies, the impressive barrows and cairns all around - including the mighty Mae's Howe, the masses of standing stones and breathtaking Stones of Stenness and Watchstone, the Ring of Bookan henge hovering on the horizon... well it's just magical in a way nowhere else is!

There were two main problems in getting paintings and sketches of this place during my visit...

One was the, admittedly not huge, distance from the car park to the circle - it's just a few moments but when carrying a full rucksack of art gear and several canvases or a drawing board in gale force winds, also dodging heavy rain showers, it becomes a game of timing it right and running for it before you are either blown away like the sail on a ship, or run out of time to achieve anything before the next soaking.

The other, really, is as simple (or hard!) as getting a good angle on it. The stones once numbered 60-70, but the remaining beauties are scatted about, arranged in a few small groups mainly, with some of the most interesting and impressive stones standing almost alone. Given the close proximity of water, and the fact the circle is on a rise, the places from which you can view the full circle in a pleasing composition are a bit limited. This means one of two options - focus in on a section, or end up using a bit of artistic licence to get what you want ;-) I will admit to squeezing up the stones in a few paintings just to make what I had to work with, well, work.

Although I might have played a few tricks with the subject matter consciously, much of any inaccuracy or change of usual style in the paintings were in fact an effect of the conditions. Now I'll admit here, as much as I appreciate the importance of working en plein air and the benefits for your work, I was always all for the comfort and warmth of working in the studio. I have to say this trip has changed my mind! When your fingers have mostly ceased from cold you have to adopt an impressionistic style, as you loose all fine control. Ditto when your arms and legs get stiff from bracing against the wind, you don't tend to jig and bob about in the same way you might normally.

February was always going to be a slightly bonkers time of year for outdoor painting - but on an island that's famous for it's winds it was going to be even more challenging! I think in some ways we escaped quite lightly with the weather - but there's no escaping the short Winter days, and that the wind got up to force 8 at times, with wind chill down to minus temperatures.

I had to use a knife to scratch the fine detail into several paintings as I simply couldn't afford the extra time at the end of painting, getting colder and stiffer, to work the detail with paint. I also had to take a decision that any rain, sand, dust that got onto a canvas was simply part of the painting and the experience.

The conditions meant all sorts of 'interesting solutions needed to be found in order to make painting possible at all. I found a couple of spots along the road that passes the circle where we could safely pull the car into and my angling the front of the car into the wind, I could work half in the boot of he car, which worked OK.

I'm excited by the work I got done at the circle whilst away, but I'm also really excited by the material I have brought back....

There are some wonderful textures and shapes in the stones, and I hope I can use these to expand the idea I had started to develop before I went away of taking stone textures and building them into semi-abstract works.

I'm hugely grateful to my husband who, after I returned to the holiday apartment one night from painting the sunset, absolutely shattered and frozen, went back out in the cold to try and get shots of the Northern Lights - which due were just about visible through a lot of cloud. The photo's didn't come out as great as they could have with a less cloud cover, but I think I should be able to do something with them... :-)