When commissioned to paint Glen Loth I wanted to capture the hills of Beinn Dhorain, Loth Burn, and include the old croft (with its historical significance to the Highland Clearances*) in the picture.

Given the large-scale and open landscape, that often is the Northern Highlands, this turned out to be quite difficult to do. The location was not new to me, I know the area, and I had also painted these hills before. However, the new challenge presented, was to work out how I was going to fit everything in. I spent some time there sketching, and typical to Highland weather in winter, it hailed, rained, and snowed! There was nowhere easy to cross the river either, so getting across would have relied on wading with wellies on, or, on one occasion we took a step ladder to get across.

Eventually, the conditions were just right and with the help of my dad and his wide angled camera lens, we captured the perfect image for me to work from.

This painting now resides at Culgower House holiday home rental Helmsdale Brora - accommodation NorthCoast500 NC500

*The Highland Clearances (historic-uk.com)

I was asked to paint Tryfan, a mountain in North Wales, as it is a mountain of significant personal importance to the client. Having spent some time living in North Wales, it was a mountain that I was also very familiar with and quite excited to paint. It has a personal connection for me too, allegedly being the place where my grandparents first met! I had a few images in store and an idea of the composition and viewpoint of Tryfan that I wanted to paint.

I have also spent a lot of time running and scrambling on Tryfan in a variety of winter and summer weather conditions. This particular view was taken from a winters day when I went out for a solo run. I started by scrambling up the North Ridge of Tryfan, ran across to Glyder Fach and Glyder Fawr, over to Y Garn and down the ridge back into Ogwen Valley. It was a fantastic route with a great variety of rocky and grassy terrain.

Kirkton Farm is South of Golspie on the A9. Having grown up in Brora, and gone to school in Golspie, I feel as though I know this view like the back of my hand!

As the farm was being sold, a few drone images were taken. Doing a painting from a drone or birds-eye view was new to me, and the different perspective intrigued me. I was drawn to this particular composition as there were almost geometric lines created by the boundaries of the fields which were broken up by the more natural, curved tire tracks from the tractor. The colours of the early morning light and long shadows from the trees also captured my attention and imagination.

The original painting is still at the farm.

Beinn Alligin is a Scottish Munro located in Torridon, North West Highlands. Initially, when commissioned to paint this mountain I was unsure how I was going to paint it. This was a mountain that, to my surprise, I had no images of! I had spent very little time there. Therefore, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to remedy that by going camping in Torridon!

Being summer, with long days, I arrived fairly late to a layby on the road near Upper Loch Torridon. When got there I immediately started wandering around looking for the best view, whilst also trying to avoid the midges! The client wanted the mountain and the loch in the painting, but beyond that the brief was fairly open. I did not know if I would get good weather and/or good light for gathering inspiration, and on this particular evening, the evening light was not brilliant and the midges were starting to get the better of me.

Fortunately, early the next morning, the light was perfect. Efforts to get there and capture an image the client was happy for me to work from had not been wasted. We worked together to finalise the details, such as a size and composition we were both happy with, and luckily enough, I also survived the midges!