Above: Eilean Calbha from Iona. Mixed media on 30×30″ wood panel. Rose Strang 2026

It’s said that Hebridean sailors and fishermen refused to go to sea without a green stone in their pocket. They believed the sea would never drown someone carrying a piece.

On Iona there are two types of green stone. There’s the famous serpentine, a translucent, waxy crystal that runs in streaks through Ionian marble. The marble is softer and so the teardrop shaped serpentine left behind was sometimes called ‘Columba’s/Calum Cille’s tears’ and it was worn as a talisman by sailors.

Happily, given I’m not much of a swimmer, my engagement ring, made for me by Adam and taken from a piece of marble I collected on Iona when I was about 19, is made from marble seamed with serpentine.

But that green stone is very different from the greenish grey rock in the foreground of my painting, which is Lewisian Gneiss.

It’s named so for the Gneiss found on Lewis, which forms the incredibly elegant stones of Callanish.

We’re looking at the oldest rocks in Britain, among the oldest rocks in the world, formed between1.7 to 3.0 billion years ago. That’s pre-dates complex multi-cellular life, so no fossils.

My painting doesn’t have serpentine crystal or marble in it, but that wave is almost exactly the colour. In the distance is Eilean Calbha, forming a barrier against the deep, wild Atlantic.

Eilean Calbha from Iona. Mixed media on 16×16″ wood panel. Rose Strang 2026

I’ll be creating more paintings of Iona for other galleries this month, but today’s painting brings us to the end of this particular series of Ionian paintings for the Resipole exhibition, Facing West, which launches this July.

All queries about the paintings can be directed to the gallery – Resipole Gallery

Many thanks for reading about this series. I’ll be painting more in the next few weeks, so there will be more here soon.

In the meantime, dear readers, here’s an old Celtic blessing, derived, or adapted from the Carmina Gadelica and often recited on Iona …

Deep peace of the running wave to you

Deep peace of the flowing air to you

Deep peace of the quiet Earth to you

Deep peace of the shining stars to you.