Although we are Scottish Highlanders by choice rather than by birth, my wife Delia and I have for many years been eager visitors to this lovely part of the world. Its ancient, ice-ground. heather tangled hills, its great sea and freshwater lochs, myriad spangle of little, rarely visited lochans; its burns and rivers rushing, tumbling down to meet a rugged, ragged coast … all of this had left on us a mark indelible.

I have always liked to paint, to compose poetry and to write - especially fiction, the writing of which, in 2002, was our primary aim in seeking the peace and quiet of Wester-Ross. And after a career in international, packaging-oriented manufacturing and consultancy it seemed a natural thing for us now to migrate north from our Hampshire home.

All the pictures featured here are painted in pastels - the purest of all media to match the purity of the light in the Western Highlands of Scotland. These paintings are not intended necessarily as photographic representations but hopefully they do bring together the fundamental 'life' of my subjects. The composing and then the execution of the painting will suggest a theme for the verse that I invariably compose whilst painting my picture. For instance, this (below and below left) is the view from our croft house… I call it One Perfect Morning …