The Scottish window, my latest work in progress

…….as my new commission has come to be known in our house! It is in a glorious part of Scotland near Suilven mountain and is intended for the window on the stair case of Nicki MacRae’s home she shares with her family. Nicki is herself a talented artist, check out her blog by clicking on her name and we have been corresponding back

and forth for a couple of months now.

Nicki was drawn to my work from a fairly abstract piece I did a while ago called impressions of the Somerset Levels. Her family liked the bright colours, the abstract nature of the piece, the pathway imagery and the surface effects, but they wanted something more specific to the countryside around them and the colours of the highland landscape……..so I but my thinking cap on and looked at lots of photos of the area, then Nicki sent me some photos of the house

and the surrounding area and colours.  One of the photos was of the most amazing sky, bubbling pink, blue, grey, quite extraordinary. I find when thinking of window designs sometimes the drawing comes first and the colours of the glass come later, but with this piece I could not start until I had found

the right pieces of glass and finally I have stumbled upon the most amazing piece of glass with all of the same hues and colours in it. But I intend to use it for some of the mountain range, not for the sky.

Nicki had specifically mentioned orange, this will contrast wonderfully with the purples of the mountains the other colours I have been drawn to are the naturalistic tones of the highlands themselves. I intend to acid etch and etch the surface of some of the glass, I want to add the sugge

stion of tussocks, hillocks and rocks in the green areas to suggest the contours of the landscape, in a similar style to how I have done the daisies on this piece.

Anyway, so Nicki here you go, 3 drawings so far, have a look let me know what you think of my ideas, obviously the colours in the drawings are crude, also I would take the stripes out of no. 3 and just have an orange path. EDIT ( Sunday afternoon) my good friend Dave has kindly emailed with some issues with my composition, and he is right! I had a feeling there weren’t quite right and he has nailed it for me, I need to balance my left side more, I will post some more balanced pic’s shortly!