Tag Archives: rose strang

Winter Still Lifes 2

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Above: 18th Century Baluster Wine Glass. Oil on 12 by 9 inch wood. Rose Strang 2025

Today’s still life; an 18th century Baluster wine glass – a type of glass with a heavy stem featuring bulbous patterns. I love those horizontal marks near the top of the glass that show the glass has stretched and that it’s hand-made. Isn’t it interesting that they would have worked so hard to remove these ‘flaws’ and nowadays we value them as part of the maker’s marks – not mass produced?

Tomorrow I’ll be painting the last in this series of three still lifes for The Graystone Gallery, Edinburgh, for their upcoming Christmas exhibition.

If you like the look of any of these, feel free to contact the Graystone with enquiries.

Some more details …

August

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Above: August I. Oil on 12×9″ wood panel. Rose Strang September 2025

The start of a new series aways begins with a certain amount of fretting! I think I’ve now found a way to explore what inspired me though – namely, August light and shadow on stone.

Not just any stone – this was inspired by a brief visit to Bath during the height of August to visit a friend of my partner Adam (hello Martin!) – a fellow architect. They met while studying architecture back in the 90’s and have remained great friends ever since.

So of course we were treated to a tour of Bath to admire its architecture and Jane Austen vibe in late August sunshine. You couldn’t get more touristy really, but sunlight on stone has always amazed me. I’ve never been trained in the art of architectural drawing, so I’m keeping it simple.

My last series (viewable on this link Forest of Luffness) was so challenging, with such complex ideas that I wanted to keep it simple for the rest of the year.

This series titled August is the first of two series I’ll be painting until the end of the year. The second will be titled November and will focus on the subtleties of light within interior settings.

Both series will be framed in hand-made and wood-stained en plein air frames (think large, dark wood Vermeer-esque frames) which will add much to the architectural theme.

It feels good to get started. More tomorrow …

Changes

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Above: Forest of Luffness 8. Oil on Canvas Diptych 30×30″ and 30×12″. Rose Strang 2025

I decided to re-paint Forest of Luffness 8 as the previous version didn’t quite capture the atmosphere I intended.

You can compare and contrast for yourself, here they are below (the first is my previous version, followed by the latest one below) …

Exhibition Saturday 19th July

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Coming up in just 9 days, The Edinburgh Festival Exhibition at The Graystone Gallery, Edinburgh!

Saturday 19th June, 2 to 4pm, Graystone Gallery

Here’s a litle vid showing the inspiration of Iona and clips of the painting process …

Final Luffness painting, for now ..

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Above: Forest of Luffness 18. Oil on Canvas Diptych 30×30″ and 30×12″. Rose Strang 2025

This is the final painting in the current Luffness series. I may continue painting this theme later in the year but it would take a different form.

Rather than explain or describe the meaning behind this series, I’m going to let the documentary explain that.

It’s going to be beautiful, with specially commissioned music, a highly talented film-maker, powerful ideas, and moving observations, expressed by Richard Demarco. The first draft might be ready by mid July. After some final tweaks it should be ready for public viewing by August.

In the meantime, here are all the paintings in the series …

 

Storm Island

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Above. Storm Island. Oil on 50×50″ linen canvas. Rose Strang 2025.

Part of a series in progress for the Graystone Gallery‘s Edinburgh Festival exhibition launching to the public Saturday 19th July 2025 from 1 to 3pm

The photo below includes me to show scale …

The painting’s called Storm Island because it shows a somewhat abstracted view from the north beach of Iona to Eilean Annraidh, which means (you guessed it!) Island of Storm in Gaelic.

It doesn’t look remotely stormy from the shore, it generally looks somewhat tranquil, even mystical in the way that islands do until you’re on them. A sense of untouched purity with its white sand and luminous tuquoise water.

I can never capture in traditonal or realist paintings that feeling of mystery. Abstracting this painting a little, and painting from a place where I’m thinking of colour, shape and texture rather than what’s actually there, maybe gives more of a sense of that feeling.

The foreground suggests a rockpool. The rock pools on the north beach of Iona are incredible sometimes, you feel you’ve stumbled upon some sort of dragon’s lair, with this lime green water among the jagged jet black rocks.

I have one more of these semi abstract works to finish this week, then the series for the Graystone Gallery is complete. The exhibition launches with a preview on Saturday 19th July from 1 to 3pm. Hope to see you there!

Iona Sea, new exhibitions

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Above: Iona Abbey from North Beach. Oil on 30×20″ linen canvas. Rose Strang 2025

Today’s painting, above, is one of two landscapes for the upcoming Graystone Gallery exhibition in Edinburgh which launches on Saturday 19th July this year from 1 to 3pm

I’m taking these two landscapes as a starting point for two much larger abstract works for the Graystone, about which I’m very excited as I really awant to play with colour, mood and texture, not just views of Iona, lovely as those are to paint!

Just looking at my palette at the end of today is an inspiration!

More next week …

Iona Sea and new exhibitions in 2025

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Above: North Beach Iona, May. Oil on 30×20 inch linen canvas. Rose Strang 2025

Lots of exciting new projects coming up!

The painting above is one of a series I’m creating for the Graystone Gallery, Edinburgh for their Edinburgh Festival exhibition, which launches on Saturday July 19th from 1 to 3pm

The painting below is for the Limetree Gallery‘s upcoming Summer Exhibition which launches 3rd July. You can preview or reserve paintings now by contacting them on their website.

(If you’re interested in buying or reserving one of the paintings please contact the galleries direct on the links in the above paragraph, thank you).

I have another three at larger sizes for the Graystone coming up. Readers of the blog will know how much Iona means to me, and to thousands of other people who visit the island every year. It’s a special place I’ve been visiting now for about thirty four years and I’d say it’s one of my biggest inspirations as an artist.

The next larger paintings will be a bit more abstract, but I know that people find these paintings of turquoise sparkling water joyful, and so do I!

This series is doubly special since my partner Adam and I prepared the canvases ourselves with sretcher bars and raw linen.

I’ve kept the lovely texture and colour of the linen by using clear gesso. If you look at the close ups of ‘Sea Light, Iona’ and ‘Iona North Beach, May’ below, you can see the unpainted canvas …

More soon …

Forest of Luffness. Painting progress 24

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Above: Forest of Luffness 17. Oil on 30×30 inch canvas. Rose Strang 2025

This is changed quite a bit from the last post, I wasn’t getting the sense of light in the forest – it was afternoon and the tones were warm.

Here’s the last version and posted and today’s side-by-side …

A detail and a close up of my palette – there’s always a nice build up of the coour scheme by the end of a series, then it’s all scrubbed back (this is a glass palette so it’s easier to scrub back) before the next series. …

One more painting and the series will be complete! I’d love to get on with that that tomorrow but we’re off to the beautiful Isle of Iona for our anniversary!

While there I’ll be sketching, painting and photographing for my next series, which will be some large, textured semi-abstract seascape paintings on unbleached linen for the Graystone Gallery, Edinburgh

I’m very excited about the Graystone Exhibition – it launches 18th July and will be part of the Edinburgh Festival. If you click on the link above you can see they show some exciting work and it’s great to be a part of that.

I’ll also be contributing some work as part of the Limetree Gallery‘s Summer Exhibition this year and if you read this blog you’ll know how happy I am to be included as part of their excellent year-round exhibition programme!

Much more about all of that soon, but, one thing at a time. I’ll complete the Luffness series first!

The Luffness series is very much a ‘slow-burn’ as it were, since I want to show the series privately at first, alongside the accompanying documentary. It has been the most absorbing and challenging series of my life so far. The documentary describes the collaborative aspect of a long-term art project like this – all the much loved people involved, the ideas, themes, research and experience.

The Luffness series and documentary probably won’t show publically until early next year. So in a couple of weeks I’ll be posting more here about the Graystone Gallery and Limetree Gallery series very soon!

Forest of Luffness. Painting progress 23

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Above: Forest of Luffness 17. Oil on 30×30 inch canvas. Rose Strang 2025

Clickable details below …

I’ve been lost in a sea of John Singer Sargent paintings these last few days, particularly this one …

What a beauty. Those dashes of lemon yellow, his incredible understanding of light. I can see this is also a bit of an erotic theme as he was never a very monogamous character, but that’s not what captivates me about this painting. I wish I’d seen it sooner in this series! Then again, we don’t want to be derivative I suppose.

This is the penultimate painting of the series. I might have said that before but I’m creating an extra one just in case. I want the series to be sevent paintings only.

More next week …