For the outlanders (Original, Signed and Framed)

Original watercolour on hot pressed paper

75cm x 56cm (unframed)

In this painting I wanted to convey a sense of climbing high to a vantage point, a pathway traversing from a distance to the point we look back and admire what we can see.  

Along the great glen way, a 75 mile walking route from Fort William to Inverness, there are forks along the way, where you can opt to take a high route - obviously, this seems to best choice despite the added physical push.  There was one point looking over Loch Ness where there was a row of Silver Birch trees, caught in the high bright light of midday.  They looked so graceful, and the image stayed with me.  I love trees and birch trees in particular.  We had one in the front garden of the house I grew up in, I remember lying on my bed with the window open in the summer and listening to the rustle of the leaves, a unique and lovely sound with a lullaby quality.

Perhaps for this reason I like how birch trees crop up unexpectedly, sometimes on the edge of a forest or woodland...something about this lingers in my mind from the distant A level geography I failed, the reason birch trees are sometimes outlanders to the main crowd of trees. I could look this up but I think I like the mystery.

Walking in nature is wonderful and I was hoping to catch this feeling, with the birches soft yet luminous, standing apart, as they do - as some people do.  

'From a certain point on, there is no turning back.  This is the point that needs to be reached.' Franz Kafka