Some years ago, as a result of a commission, I travelled along the Great Glen, that deep geological scar which traverses Scotland from west to east. Beginning with the sea loch in the west past the Grampian mountains, and following the Caledonian Canal which links a series of other lochs on the Great Glen floor, it reaches the long, deep stretch of the last enclosed loch, Loch Ness in the east which exits into the North Sea at Inverness.
One morning, walking around Knockie, high above Loch Ness, the sun was rising over the hill while the valley remained clothed in mist. Red deer were about but it was still a month before the rut would begin.
I mused what it would be like in five weeks time if a taste of winter chill brought an early frost to such a place at the time of the rut in October.
That veiled sunrise lent an air of mystery to the high-sided valley which stayed with me. It occured to me that it was a setting where I could focus on red deer as a group – the steep wooded slopes and floor of the glen shrouded in mist. Against that, I could foreground the deer clearly as the main focus of the painting.
I made several sketches of possible compositions where, because of the rut, the deer were more than usually interested in each other.
So, as in that morning at Knockie, I set it with the sun’s glare beginning to appear through the mist over a high-sided glen. But now, in October, the sun’s warmth begins to melt a frost that had settled over the valley after a cold, clear night.
The deer are pictured as the sun’s rays begin to warm the ground around their feet while the rest of the valley and facing slopes remain wreathed in that chill air. The icy hoar lingers on the darker side of the glen and away, above, the first snows of the season have brought an early covering on the peaks of the distant mountains.