Eigg Series No. 49. Acrylic and ink on 5×5″ wood

Today’s painting; The mountains of Rum from Laig Bay with turquoise sea in the foreground.

Tomorrow is the last day of ’50 Paintings of Eigg’ – I’ll miss this daily blog and painting! But I’ll still blog once or twice a week with painting updates etc. Just click ‘Follow’ on the right hand column under the Facebook section if you’d like to receive email updates.

I’ve mentioned a few influences throughout this blog, and can’t get to the end of the 50 paintings series without mentioning my love of perfume – I often use perfume and music  to put me in the right mood for painting (the hourly news on Radio 4 can somewhat deaden inspiration!)

I tend to think that perfume, and the sense of smell in general, have been given something of a back seat in terms of the human senses. Smell is often described as a primitive sense, linked to instinct, as if our other senses weren’t also integral to negotiating our environment!

And it’s almost as though love of perfume is something to be kept in a closet; a frivolous concern. Yet, think of those who after receiving cancer treatment may lose their sense of smell – with no knowledge of whether or not it will return.

This is what happened to a friend of mine (Calum, who runs the printing company Giclee UK, who make art prints from original paintings. I’ve relied on their services quite a few years now). He described how overwhelmingly sad he felt at the loss of smell following cancer treatment some years ago, and the sense of joy when many months later on opening a bottle of Shiraz wine, it all came flooding back.

It gave him a new appreciation of scent, and on discovering that his favourite lime-scented soap from Penhaligons had been discontinued, he decided to concoct something similar himself, and thus an amateur perfume-maker was born!

Oakleaf, Ariundle Nature Reserve

I’ve only experimented a little with perfume absolutes and essences, but I’ve been collecting and testing perfumes for a few years now and have a good idea of what I’d like to create. So in collaboration with Calum, the plan is to create a new perfume based on the the scent of the Oak woods of Ariundle on the West Coast of Scotland.

Ariundle is one of the last remaining fragments of natural woodland that once covered all of Europe’s Atlantic coast, from Portugal to Norway, so it’s now a protected National Nature Reserve

I’ll be sure to post information here if and when we launch the perfume, which will of course be titled Ariundle. It’ll be a soft woody/green floral with hints of moss – I can’t wait to begin experiments!