18th Century Toasting Glasses. Oil on 12 x 9″ wood panel. Rose Strang 2026
More work today on glass painting. These are a gift for someone’s upcoming wedding.
Until the end of April this year I’ll be painting still lifes, but after that I’ll be fully immersed in landscape painting from May to July, in preparation for group exhibitions at The Resipole Gallery and The Limetree Gallery.
I’ll be staying on the Isle of Iona for two weeks so I can really get into the feel of it there. I’m so looking forward to it as it’s been a while since I took time to really focus on one landscape.
Above: Red Perfume Bottle with Silver Cap. Oil on 12 by 9 inch wood panel. Rose Strang 2025
(On easel) Red Perfume Bottle with Silver Cap. Oil on 12 by 9 inch wood panel. Rose Strang 2025
Red Perfume Bottle with Silver Cap. Oil on 12 by 9 inch wood panel. Rose Strang 2025
Red Perfume Bottle with Silver Cap. Oil on 12 by 9 inch wood panel. Rose Strang 2025
(Detail) Red Perfume Bottle with Silver Cap. Oil on 12 by 9 inch wood panel. Rose Strang 2025
(Detail) Red Perfume Bottle with Silver Cap. Oil on 12 by 9 inch wood panel. Rose Strang 2025
This is the first of three winter still lifes I’m painting for the Graystone Gallery in Edinburgh. They’ll be available to buy from around the 10th December, so contact the Graystone Gallery with any queries, they’re super helpful!
If you follow this blog then you might recognise the subject as this is not the first time I’ve painted this beautiful little bottle. The last time was in 2020 for the Limetree Gallery, Bristol. It belongs to my mum and I find it a magical little object. It always made me think of Lucy’s little cystal bottle which held healing elixir (The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe).
Others have said the painting makes them think of Alice in Wonderland (the “Drink Me” scene). I love painting these jewel-like still lifes in winter. Landscape painting is easier in the warmer months as the colours are so subtle. Winter light is hard to paint in, so up-close, monochrome or strong-coloured subjects work well
I think my painting has improved since I last painted this subject, you can be the judge of that though! Here they are, side by side …
Sold. ‘Antique Perfume Bottle, Red’. Oil on 13×13″ wood. Rose Strang 2020
Red Perfume Bottle with Silver Cap. Oil on 12 by 9 inch wood panel. Rose Strang 2025
(Above – driving through Glen Shee to Braemar. Photo Rose Strang. All photos below by Rose Strang and Adam Brewster)
The more I visit the Cairngorms the more I understand how they pull at the heart. In Nan Shepherd’s words from her poem – Summit of Corrie Etchachan:
” …No vision of the blue world, far, unattainable, But this grey plateau, rock-strewn, vast, silent …”
The Braemar Literary Festival was abuzz with ideas and conviviality – it was truly special to be there, but what remains with me is the changing mood and light of the mountains and the sense that just beyond the warmth and safety of Braemar is this arctic beauty, clear water, epic forests and everchanging skies. I really want to go back there and paint!
I was surprised by viewer reactions to my paintings (The Living Mountain series, completed in 2021). It was emotional and I had some really lovely conversations with people who feel passionately about the Cairngorms, for which I’m very grateful.
Copyright Fife Arms Hotel
I attended the festival with my partner Adam, and we were blown away by the generosity we experienced from Art Farm (the people who manage art and cultural events at the Fife Arms Hotel on behalf of Hauser and Wirth). Also by the people who run the Highland Pavilion, who provided us with fresh coffee, scones and friendly chats the two days we were there.
We didn’t expect Art Farm to invite us to their yearly literary dinner at the Fife Arms, along with some well-known authors and poets including David Nicholls (One Day), Alexander McCall Smith (44 Scotland Street) and Scotland’s Makar (Poet Laureate) Peter MacKay.
The Fife Arms instagram page has some great photos of the weekend on this link –
David Nicholls was amused when I told him he’d traumatised me with his gripping, emotional book One Day. We chatted about the effects on society of lockdown, touched on in his new bookYou Are Here, which I’m already enjoying – it has the characteristic loveable, flawed characters Nicholls is known for.
I was sitting next to Peter Mackay for dinner, and had a fascinating chat about Scottish Gaelic, the structure of ancient clan society and Scottish politics. Turns out we’d both drawn a parallel between the underground mycorrhizal networks that connect trees (explored by scientist Suzanne Simmard) and non hierarchical clan society. That was a bit of a niche ‘high five’ moment! Here’s my rambling post on the subject from 2019 – Planets, Narnia, Clans, Trees)
Alexander McCall Smith was as convivial as you’d imagine, telling me an amusing tale about a painting he’d acquired from the Scottish Gallery which turned out to be by a Dutch master!
The entire weekend was a rich and autumnal experience that Adam and I won’t forget, so a warm thank-you to all at Art Farm, The Duke of Rothesay Highland Games Pavilion and staff at The Fife Arms Hotel (unmatched for lush comfort, warmth and style!)
I’ll end with a poem (it was written first in Gaelic then translated by MacKay) by Peter MacKay, which, although it’s about the sea, not the Cairngorms, somehow speaks to me of their pull …
My paintings from the Living Mountain Series will be showing in the Highland Pavilion, Braemar on the 27th and 28th September and I’ll be there for ‘meet the artist’ from 12 noon to 1:30pm.
If you follow this blog you’ll maybe remember the exciting commission I was given by the Folio Society, London, in 2021. The Folio were re-publishing their own edition of The Living Mountain, and sought an artist to illustrate the book. I felt honoured and surprised – this being one of my favourite books of all time! (the Folio edition is now completely sold out – it’s possible to buy a copy online from booksellers but it’s now into the £100s. How I wish I’d held on to more of the copies they gave me. I have just one left)
The Braemar Literary Festival was founded by world-famous art collectors Hauser and Wirth, who own the Fife Arms Hotel in Braemar. The’ve turned the hotel into a quite extraordinary experience, the place is festonned with stunning original works of art including a Picasso and an enormous Bruegel in the dining room. The atmosphere is high-end but not uppity, the style in keeping with its Victorian heritage, they even have a framed letter by Queen Victoria tucked away in an alcove somewhere.
Guest speakers to the festival will include Monica Ali, Alexander McCall Smith, David Nichol (known most recently for the televised version of his heart-rending novel; One Day), Giles Coren and many more interesting authors, journalists and presenters (link Here)
Hope to see you there! Here’s the info again …
My paintings from the Living Mountain Series will be showing in the Highland Pavilion, Braemar on the 27th and 28th September and I’ll be there for a ‘meet the artist’ hour from 12 noon to 1:30pm.
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 …
‘Storm Island’. Oil on 50×50″ linen canvas. Rose Strang 2025
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 theGraystone Galleryis complete. The exhibition launches with a preview on Saturday 19th July from 1 to 3pm. Hope to see you there!
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 Galleryexhibition 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!
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).
‘Sea Light, Iona’. Oil on 40 x 30 inch linen canvas. Rose Strang 2025
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 …
Above: (Painting in progress) First of June. Forest of Luffness 10. Oil on 12×12″″ canvas. Rose Strang 2025.
I’m working on the hands and the rest of the background tomorrow (the easy part!) you can see pencil outlines.
Clickable images and details below –
Working on a close up portrait of Richard Demarco today for the Luffness series.
This is fairly small again at 12×12″ canvas. I took a still from film footage of our day at Luffness, from which I’m painting this portrait.
There were nine of us there that day last year, including little baby Atlas, but when I carefully look back through all the footage Manuel sent me (Manuel Pennuto is the documentary maker of the Luffness project) the person really paying attention is f course Richard and Terry.
It’s why I asked he and Terry Newman if they’d like to visit the friary ruins at Luffness.
I’d write more about that but it’s 9pm and I’m puggled! There’s nothing more complex than painting the human face – that is, if you truly want to capture expression, hence feeling tired. It’s a good thing I now have a painting lamp so I can paint all hours, but my back isn’t thanking me!
I feel I could create three portraits showing sight, hearing, touch and soul – the idea of (as D.H Lawrence put it) wholly attending.
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 –
‘First of June. Forest of Luffness 7’. Oil on 12×12″ canvas. Rose Strang 2025
‘First of June. Forest of Luffness 8’. Oil on 19.5×19.5″ wood. Rose Strang 2025
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 …
Rose Strang Artworks 