Seabank

Now that my client has received it and everyone's mighty happy I can show you a painting completed a couple of weeks ago (before the Torridon effort).

It is called 'Seabank Cottage, Loch Ewe - Midsummer Midnight'. Here I've attempted to capture that softness of light that happens during those midsummer weeks when there is no real night time here. Whites glow brightly and all the rest is, as I say, softness. The verse reads...


On a midsummer midnight
This was the longest day and now Loch Ewe -Whose restless tides care nought for day or night -With all the world takes on a softer hueDark tones more hazy, lighter ones more light.
And here's a cottage where the roadway bendsAlong from Aultbea towards Mellon Charles 'Seabank' has been so many journeys' end -For more, far more than any hundred years
A hundred thousand tides have lapped its wallFive thousand storms have tried to bring it lowBut seabirds from its chimney pots still callAnd now the cottage bathes in midnight's glow.
Still trickling by, a burn across the beach -Fresh rains to slake the ever thirsty salt -Where otters take their playful cubs to teachTo fish, but sleep inside their bankside holt.
Bryan IslipJanuary 2011