The valley of the mills contains the burn that flows from a five
square kilometre area of moorland between the high ground of Muirneag in the
west to the beach of Traigh Mhor on the far north east coast of Lewis. Ten or more
lochs reside within this collection area but the river can vary from a
mid-summer trickle through an autumnal steady flow to a flash flood torrent at
almost any time of year. Along the final kilometre beyond New Tolsta these churning
peat stained waters fall rapidly through the valley towards the beach where it
does salty battle with the incoming tide. For those who know how to read this
landscape there are still the remains of two so called Nordic mills along this
final stretch of the burn. This east facing seaward valley drops away from the
northerly extremities of the New Tolsta crofts and is the view I look out on each
day from my studio.
This valley could equally well be called the valley of
rainbows for as I sit painting in my studio, outside all manner of intensely
coloured rainbows form during days when the shallow autumnal sun highlights sharp
showers arriving on blustery westerly winds. The Richard of York seductive arch
tempting me in and daring me to render such fleeting marvels in paint.
Even Constable seemed only to include rainbows when they
obtained the intensity of doubling as in his water colour of Stonehenge where
two seemingly colourless rainbow forms dramatically dominate the sky.
A
slightly more colourful rendition appears in London from Hampstead, with a
Double Rainbow, but here we see two very small sections of the arch within a
shaft of sunlight.
Only in Constables studio set-piece of Salisbury Cathedral
from the meadows in 1831 does he attempt a high vault over the spire that is
achieved by using the paint at the opposite end of impasto like water colour
thinned to a soft veil. JMW Turner was in my mind the greatest master of
dramatic lighting but even he seemed to side step the rainbow rather than fight
battles in vain.
One of my own water colour attempts.
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