Above But did I dream that roe? (The Living Mountain Series). Oil on 37x27x2 cm antique pine wood. Rose Strang 2021

I’m delighted to reveal (at last!) that in December 2020 I was commissioned by The Folio Society to create nine paintings for their new illustrated publication of Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain. This has been a beautiful project – a challenge that I wholeheartedly welcomed as I’ve loved this book for many years.

The project has been under embargo until its launch date of October 12th 2021, so you can imagine how thrilling it is for me to see it published on the Folio Society’s website!

The link below takes you to the Folio Society’s launch page for the new publication, which features most of the images from the book, accompanying information about Nan Shepherd, and why the book has become such an iconic work of landscape literature.

Robert MacFarlane (author of The Wild Places, The Lost Words and Underlands, among many much-loved books about landscape, flora and fauna) has written the introduction for the book. For MacFarlane, and countless other readers, this book has changed or deepened the way they experience mountain climbing and landscape.

I remember the way Nan Shepherd’s vivid prose enthralled me on my first read. Alongside painting the series (from December 2020 to April 2021) I kept an artist’s journal in which I recorded the creative process; not just inspiration for the paintings, but also everything I learned about Nan from the literary executor of Nan’s Shepherd’s estate, Erlend Clouston, plus the wonderful experience of climbing part of the snowy Cairngorms with my partner Adam in March this year.

I’ll be posting the journal in a series of blogs over the coming months. In the meantime, I hope you’ll take a look at the newly published book on this link! …

The Living Mountain. Nan Shepherd. The Folio Society