Above: First of June. Forest of Luffness 9. Oil on 30 by 30 inch canvas. Rose Strang 2025

This is the largest in a series of the same subject. I wanted to create it on a large scale to really get the sense of the figures in a forest – possibly lost, or perhaps they’ve discovered themselves in a different realm or time!

Here are the three paintings at different sizes –

Forests seem to have always been associated with mystery, a search, sometimes the idea of freedom from authority, or the idea of spiritual seclusion. I’m a fairly instinctive painter – I don’t begin with a definite concept that I then execute precisely – far from it! I think this approach echoes what I find in landscape and why I paint it. Adding figures always brings tension – it makes the viewer ask more questions, especially when the group are so srangely placed as they are in this painting.

More paintings coming soon, I’m having a little break from it for a couple of days while I write a book of short stories I’ve been working on. More on that later …

Here’s aclose-up of the figures –