I Started Painting Landscapes By Accident

I didn’t set out to become a landscape painter. That would imply intention, which is not always how my studio works. More often I start poking at one thing, get bored, wander sideways into another thing, and then eventually discover that I have apparently become someone who paints a lot of landscapes.

That is roughly what happened here.

I spent a good stretch of winter making more abstract work. Drips, runs, odd marks, layered bits of paint that looked interesting before I quite knew what to do with them. Then, as the weather warmed up and I started working more comfortably again, I found myself doing what I usually do: trying to bring figures or faces back out of the mess.

Only this time I kept stopping before I had scrubbed too much away.

There was something in the underpainting that I liked. It was one of those situations where the surface looks unfinished in a way that is more interesting than anything you are likely to ruin it with if you force the issue. I stood back, looked at the thing, and thought: that could be a landscape. Not a particularly obedient landscape, mind you, but a landscape all the same.

So I followed it.

That became the pattern. Start from something abstract or semi-abstract, let the marks suggest a scene, then keep enough of the original mess that the painting still has life in it. I like that better than trying to force every piece into the same careful, descriptive style. It gives me some room to breathe.

Part of the reason it works now is that I’ve been using more materials that encourage texture. I’ve been mixing paint with other things, building up surfaces, and leaning into palette knives and impasto rather than trying to make everything behave like a neat little illustration. Once the surface starts asking for it, the painting stops being about precision and becomes more about atmosphere.

That suits me.

I have never been especially interested in the kind of landscape painting that counts every blade of grass and politely inventories the entire horizon. I’d rather catch the mood of a place. The weather. The light. The feeling of walking somewhere and having your brain switch gears a little because the world has gone from screens and errands to hills, sky, and all the usual nonsense of being alive outdoors.

So these pictures have drifted towards the sort of landscape that lets me do that. A bit Turner, probably, if I’m being generous to myself. More mood than map. More colour and movement than neat topography. I’m not trying to produce an accurate survey of the countryside. I’m trying to make something that feels like it did when I was there.

That usually means skies, texture, and a fair amount of improvisation. I’ll suggest trees rather than draw every branch. I’ll hint at distance rather than describe it. I’ll let the surface do some of the work. If the canvas ends up with a bit of chaos in it, good. That means it still has some energy.

It also means I can work in a way that feels less like labour and more like play, which is the whole point. I know myself well enough by now to know that if something becomes too fiddly or too dutiful, I’ll drift off it. If I can keep the process intuitive and a bit physical, I stay with it longer.

That is probably why this has lasted long enough to become a genuine run of work rather than a passing experiment. I keep finding images in the marks. I keep enjoying the process. And I have enough of these pieces now that they may well become the basis for the next exhibition, which is due in July at Aytoun Hall in Auchterarder.

I also do not expect to stay here forever. I have a long history of getting very interested in something, insisting I am now doing that thing forever, and then wandering off somewhere else a few weeks or months later. That is part of how my brain operates. It is not always tidy, but it does keep things moving.

For now, though, I am enjoying the accident.

Sometimes the best thing you can do in the studio is stop trying to outsmart what is already working and just keep going. If the marks are suggesting landscapes, perhaps they know something I do not. If the texture is good, perhaps that is enough. If the painting feels alive, perhaps the rest is just me making paperwork out of a good instinct.

I’ll take that.