Old Man Of Storr, Skye

I've been meaning to make a painting of the Old Man of Storr for quite a while. My partner, my dog, and I, went to Skye at the beginning of last year, and I took hundreds of photos that I couldn't wait to make paintings from, but it can sometimes be a bit difficult to find the time to work on paintings of my own because there are always so many commissioned paintings to get done. That's not a complaint, I'm incredibly lucky to have such a long list of commission work in front of me, but it's certainly a treat to get to work on something of my own every so often. I love this painting because it not only reminds me of an amazing moment, but I look at it and remember an incredible few days. We had spent the previous night in our motorhome, parked up at Kilt Rock, the view point overlooking Mealt Falls, and although we arrived around 2pm, we didn't actually head out to look at the falls until about 7pm. Instead, we sat and enjoyed the view of everyone else looking at the falls for the first time. The Rabbies Tour buses were bringing a new group of people every few minutes, and there was something quite nice about watching everyone else getting excited about something I'd never seen before. Watching so many people enjoy the view, made me even more excited to see it. The rain had been torrential all day, and the grey skies showed no signs of it letting up, but it did. Just before the sunset, the tour buses disappeared, the rain stopped, the clouds vanished, and we got the falls all to ourselves. The next morning we woke up before the sunrise, and drove a short distance down the road to the car park at the foot of the Old Man of Storr, and headed on up before anyone else. It was a gorgeous day. We climbed to the viewpoint and admired the landscape for a while. I took the photo that inspired this painting. I couldn't wait to capture the lime greens of the land - that's what really stood out to me at first, but when I actually got round to working on the canvas, there was so much more to get excited about, the mark-making of the land, and the stone, and the great sense of distance. I'm so used to turning everyone else's memories into paint, it was so lovely to be able to capture a memory of my own.