Painting: Nocturne 18

This is an older painting of mine from 2018. I’d forgotten it existed honestly, although it hangs in our downstairs toilet at the moment! It had become such a part of the scenery that I’d stopped noticing it. Yesterday I nearly knocked it off the wall by accident while chasing a fly and it made me stop and look at it again. There’s a mixture of oil paint and wax on the surface. I used the wax to build up texture to paint on top of and it was amazing to paint on. I must try that again and look into the use of wax in painting more in depth.

I remember being really pleased with the head, and it stands the test of time. Sometimes I look back at something and think “how did I do that?”. This head is one of those. Usually when I paint with more courage, it comes out better. Tentative fiddling rarely produces work that I look back on and enjoy. The background is looking from Bynack More to Ben Macdui. This was the first Munro I ever tackled.