A Sense of Belonging
By Stephen M. Redpath | January 10, 2021
In March 2020, the pandemic led to a lockdown in the UK, as it did in many countries. Our worlds shrank. Yet, despite the worries, for me there was a silver lining—I became intimately connected with the landscape around the small village where I live in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Every day I would walk along the Tarland Burn (a small stream that flows into the river Dee) and I looked, sketched, and painted. The more I looked, the more I saw and the more I wanted to paint. I got to know this little bit of land and water in great detail and I felt connected to the place in a way that I hadn’t previously. The act of looking and drawing is very intimate and tender and it drew me to this place that I know I will revisit to paint time and again, long after this pandemic has passed.
Stephen M. Redpath, Tarland Burn, watercolour sketch, 12cm x 20cm 2020
Stephen M. Redpath, Looking up the burn towards the ash trees, watercolour sketch, 15cm x 40cm 2020
Stephen M. Redpath, Under the trees, soft pastels, 20cm x 25cm 2020
Stephen M. Redpath, Vegetation along the burn, soft pastels, 20cm x 25cm 2020
Stephen M. Redpath, Light on the water, soft pastels, 20cm x 30cm 2020
Copyright © 2021 Stephen M. Redpath
Stephen Redpath has a small studio in the village of Tarland, Aberdeenshire. His burning passion is landscape painting, mainly in watercolour, a medium he loves because of its luminosity, immediacy and unpredictability. His work builds on direct observation in the field, often combined with memories, feelings and an emotional response to the natural world. He relies extensively on the experiences gained from working in a variety of landscapes, and he loves to work in that area between representation and abstract. He strives for those exhilarating moments where the landscape and his emotional response become interwoven in the painting.