Bog Myrtle & Peat

I go through cyclical phases of enthusiasm for artwork, and I’ve spent the last three years in an agonised frenzy working to set down some of the notes from this blog through the medium of oil and canvas.

Maddeningly, I’ve consistently failed to reach a standard which would allow me to have the confidence to share this work, and most of it has been painted out and abandoned in the back of my office. It would be easy to abandon this painting ambition altogether if I felt that I was able to communicate all that I see through words alone, but I so often spot things in art which have no direct translation into text. Having recently adopted a new approach which aims to keep things very simple, I have gone into painting overdrive and hope to publish some of this work on this blog before too long.

The really relevant point here is that my painting has led me through a variety of profoundly inspiring artists who all seem to provoke an urgent creative response. I am particularly fixated on a German American hunter called Carl Rungius, whose early Twentieth Century paintings of wildlife in the wild American west are enough to make my hair stand on end. If Rungius is recognised as the artist who represents Big Skies and Rockie Mountains, how might someone go about doing similar for the wild back country of Galloway? There’s plenty to ponder and a vast amount of work to do.