Above: Forest of Luffness 11. Oil on 30×30″ canvas. Rose Strang 2025
More work today on the Forest of Luffness series. Today’s painting features Richard Demarco beginning to explore the tomb, while in the background Emma walks into the picture with baby Atlas. It’s an odd composition but I liked the filmic sense of mystery. I enjoyed painting loosely and freely; more of this sort of painting to come I think.
A few close-ups and details …
Above: First of June. Forest of Luffness 10. Oil on 12×12″″ canvas. Rose Strang 2025.
Today I updated yesterday’s painting of Richard Demarco, and as usual I’m not at all sure I shoudn’t have left it! Still, it does actually loo more like Richard, and it did need a bit more grounding – so I added legs, hint of the chair etc, but quite sketchy.
In the upcoming documentary, we”ll be interviewing Richard about some of his past work – exploring dialogue between war-torn countries and the healing presence of art.
Back when I worked with Richard as an assistant archivist and curator, Richard was working with Mercy Corp on an exhibition called Beyond Conflict, whch explored the negative impact 9/11 had had on a western view of Muslims.
We’ll be discussing that exhibition in the upcoming doc’ and we’ll be exploring the role of faith in art – does it change what we seek to express, or what we look for in others’ artworks?
Some more views of today’s finished painting.
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.
More tomorrow …
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 –
Above: First of June. Forest of Luffness 8. Oil on 19.5×19.5 inch wood. Rose Strang 2025
This series is (at last) coming into its own now. It’s taken far longer than other painting series to become coherent as there have been a lot of elements to bring together.
I’m starting to see the theme of a search emerge – these figures in the forest asking questions of life and death. I’ve always loved Gauguin’s painting D’où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?/Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897 In which he asks these questions so fundamental to the human condition:
At the same time as painting this series (which explores the ruined remains of a 12th century Carmelite Friary) I’ve also been learning Medieval music from the time, which has become part of the documentary (by filmmaker Manuel Pennuto) about this entire project.
So, tomorrow I’ll share some photos showing part of the process, including really beautiful stills from our music recording session from the Song House at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh last week. Hugely inspiring!
Above: First of June. Forest of Luffness 7. Oil on 12×12″ canvas. Rose Strang 2025
Today’s 12 by 12 inch oil on canvas sketch for the Forest of Luffness series. Also below, the same image (clickable) and a detail …
One more at this size then I’ll be on to 30×30 inch canvas, which will make life easier in some ways. It’s impossible to get more detail on faces at this small scale without getting finicky, which I don’t want.
With today’s painting I wanted to explore the sense of a group of people lost, or searching in a forest. On a larger scale it will be possible to have them smaller and more in the distance.
More on Monday …
Above: Detail from The First of June. Forest of Luffness 3. Oil on 12 x 12″ wood. Rose Strang 2024
I made a few changs today from yesterday’s painting. I think the light’s more coherent, plus Richard’s face is more accurate expression-wise.
I’m awaiting canvases (I was sent the wrong size!) so can’t really move to the next painting till those arrive. Frustrating as I’m into the swing of this series now. I plan to paint around seven at this smaller size, then go onto larger canvases.
More about the series once the new canvases arrive next week …
Above: In progress – First of June. Forest of Luffness 3. Oil on 12 x 12 inch wood. Rose Strang 2024.
It feels good to be getting into the swing of a series for the first time in a while. I’ve created three so far in this First of June series, though today’s panting does need a bit more work ..
A bit more definition would help the painting and a few tweaks on the faces. The figure I’m happiest with is that of Terry Ann Newman (in the foreground with her back to us). Terry is the Deputy Director of the Demarco Trust and a very talented artist, when she finds time to paint. She’s holding a mobile in her hand behind her back, and it’s part of this series that we’re recording and witnessing the day in our different ways – there will be more of that.
I think I’ve managed to capture the feel of Richard’s detemination and physical struggle. I remember on the day in question I was a bit worried Richard might not want to walk the path to the Carmelite friary, because at 94 walking has become a challenge and the path required struggling over uneven ground in a forest for about ten minutes. Richard was characteristically determined however! He took great delight in the dappled light, the architecture of the stonework protecting the effigy and many other aspects of the day.
I think it was partly that he’d been inspired by my description of the ruined Carmelite friary near Aberlady but also, on the day, he was telling us about Pope Pius II who in 1435 walked barefoot in the snow all the way from Dunbar to Whitekirk to give thanks for his survival from a shipwreck in the Firth of Forth.
Whitekirk is just a few miles along the road from Aberlady and apart from the church, St Mary’s (which dates back to the 11th century) it also has a beautiful two-story stone building that served as a hostel for pilgrims travelling from Iona to Lindisfarne. Aberlady was an important stop on the way. After Aberlady and our visit to the Carmelite Friary, we also visited St Mary’s.
Readers of this blog might remember I took part on Landscape Artist of the Year a couple of years ago. It was fairly pointless escapade, frankly, except for meeting some nice folks (the other artists) one of whom was called Gregory Miller (artist website Here). He recently sent me a link to a film called No Greater Love, about a Carmelite Convent in Nottinghill, London.
It’s worth a watch if you’re curious about their lifestyle. The footage and camera-work is Vermeer-like at times – capturing the natural light from windows and candles. It’s very, very quiet for the first half hour, then we get to know some of the nuns, what inspires them and why they’ve taken on this way of life.
It’s viewable on Amazon, not sure where else …
More painting tomorrow.
Above and directly below: First of June. Luffness 2. Oil on 12 x 12 inch canvas. Rose Strang 2024
This is the second smaller work in a series exploring a day in June among the ruins of a Carmelite Friary. If you follow this blog you’ll know I’ve been exploring this theme from the start of the year and it’s been an interesting time…
Because I share a bit about my own creative process, it’s all hanging out there for everyone to observe how difficult it is to find the right way to approach a complicated subject!
I began with the idea of exploring a war-traumatised psyche – a dreamlike series exploring archetypal and abstract imagery. It produced these paintings below, quite different from my usual approach. It didn’t come easily but it was interesting as creative exploration.
This was followed by an attempt to depict the atmosphere of the small forest at Luffness, and the strangely affecting presence of an aged effigy depicting a 12th century crusader – almost worn to nothing. Mostly I was just trying to loosen up and find a way forward through a complicated subject – I’m an instinctive painter and although my mind is constantly active, I just can’t paint from a strategic cerebral perspective because my thoughts are rarely conclusive.
It was at this stage that a few people questioned the themes of my work, which brought me to a temporary grinding halt – a good thing since it made me think more deeply about the themes and where I stand regarding subjects such as faith, Christianity and war.
That experience was followed by a day which has now become the title of this series: The first of June in Luffness. There’s no way to summarise that day because so many aspects of it are ongoing parts of life. There’s no conclusion to my relationships to family and friends, the exploration of faith and spirituality, the exploration of art, or the response to violence and war. There’s just the fact that these things exist, ongoing.
I remember back in art college, when we were being taught about post-modernism, we were told that nothing is real, all is subjective. At the time, a good friend said ‘but suffering is real’, meaning that is surely something we can all agree on – an objective truth even though suffering has degrees of difference. How we respond to that is the question. Maybe one of the most useful books for me in recent years has been C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man – all about the concept of objectivity. It’s not an argument for religion or Christianity, it’s a philosophical work which looks at the concept of objectivity and ethics in cultures worldwide. Is there such a thing as a set of objective ideals we all understand to be true?
I’ve always liked Beckett’s lines:
Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning.
I won’t pander to louts is the upshot of all this! Anyway, in these latest paintings I think I’ve found a way to explore the themes. More on this later.
Above: Detail from a panting in progress – The First of June. Luffness
As you can see below there are several versions of this little painting. It’s oil on 10×10″ canvas and I’m sticking to this small size until I’m satisfied with my approach. Paint is just too expensive to waste on larger sizes until I know where I’m going.
I find the figure of Richard Demarco easier to paint. Painting myself is proving a challenge though! It’s partly because I don’t have space to get into detail and the fact that I don’t want to paint in detail.
I began with a straightforward depiction, but it doesn’t express what I’m interested in – it doesn’t express the light, or the feeling of being there.
So the next day I started again with a looser approach. Intriguiningly, this oddly Da Vinci-esque angelic figure appeared. I liked it – it didn’t matter that it doesn’t look like me – but inevitably I began to tamper with it and it was lost, sadly!
Today I started again and, though it’s maybe not easy to see in these quick photos below – there’s far more atmosphere, light and expression. I’m happy with the depiction of Richard, but again, not so much with the figure of me. It’s not that I want an exact likeness, it’s more that I want an impression of light more than detail, because that day was a lot to do with incredible light.
Talking of lights. Thanks to a birthday gift from Adam I’ve been both blessed and cursed with the gift of a ‘daylight light’ which means I can carry on painting into the dark hours of winter. Given I’ve only stopped now at 11pm, I’ll have to keep an eye on my hours!
More soon …
Rose Strang Artworks 