'Lost painting in idylls of frozen watery valleys stands a sturdy other cottage in heather / Shieldaig gate to Torridon.'

Chloë Tinsley

46cm x 55cm

acrylic, midges, rain and heather on unstretched canvas

Some days, when you go off to paint, you've already done a recky, you've figured out what and where, you are prepared as you can be.  You paint, you keep painting and you keep painting as the sun moves away and the clouds close in, as the midges make dive bomb attacks and your fingernails begin to glow blue.  And then, you find balance, a sense of completion of it-ness of enough-ness, you finish.  You pack up, just in time, as it begins to rain small misty drops.  The painting is after all an experience of that time, this is fine, you say, this is fine you say as you plod resolutely through the growing storm.  Stop being so wet you say, as you gode yourself and encourage the dog to move on.  Numb, cold, and soaked to the bone, you lay the painting out as the fire crackles behind you and the image so carefully rendered has entirely disappeared.  It slid off, leaving behind a beautiful wash, a faded suggestion.  A fantasy, a once was.  

Returning, to the soaked scene as the sun drums against the haze and the winter begins to creep around the midgy edges; the painting is rebuilt, and a better, crisper, lighter world nestles within the drama.  'Lost painting in idylls of frozen watery valleys stands a sturdy other cottage in heather / Shieldaig gate to Torridon.'

Where heather rolls into the watery depths of a deep chasm. Where water glides past in dreamy films encasing the pressure below. Where the house sits. A cottage, proud and angular, a gateway idyll by the trees. Inside, a light glows orange, then red, the chimney puffs out its breathy cloud. Midges clamour at the window long forgotten, inside clothes hang about the fire steaming off their hill dew...

sold. 

Available as a limited edition print.  Also available as a card printed onto recycled paper, with brown recycled paper envelope and in compostable, corn-starch wrap.