A passion for Scottish Red Grouse. The studio is based in the Highlands of Scotland and is surrounded by an amazing range of bird species. The top game bird species to be found on the hills is the Red Grouse ' The King of Game Birds '. Needless to say it one of the bird species that features a great deal in paintings for local sporting clients and Highland estates commissions. We can hear the grouse on the hill from the studio with their ' chut!chut!chut!chut!chut!chuttt....' call and are often flushed during walks up on the heather.

Over the years the grouse paintings have become simplified from full landscapes to cleaner paired back works that form studies of these charismatic game birds. Sometimes simple watercolours on stark white panels, acrylic portraits on traditional canvas to sub urban bird projects painted in Montana Gold spray paint on walls featuring Gaelic text inspired by mythical beings of the hills like the Glaistig. 

The glaistig is a ghost from Scottish mythology, a type of fuath. It is also known as maighdean uaine ( Green Maiden ), and may appear as a woman of beautiful or monstrous mien, as a half-woman half-goat similar to a faun, or in the shape of a goat. The lower goat half of her hybrid form is usually disguised by a long, flowing green robe or dress, and the woman often appears grey with long yellow hair.

Red Grouse

The red grouse, Lagopus lagopus scotica, is a medium-sized bird of the grouse family which is found in heather moorland in Great Britain and Ireland. It has a plump body, a short tail and a lightly hook-tipped bill. It is reddish-brown, with its legs and feet covered in pale feathers. Birds breed in the UK in the uplands of Scotland  and are resident all year round, travelling very little in their lives.