Scotland / Preparations: Route

Where we're going, and why

Aug 27, 2024

Well, the time has finally come—we're packing for Scotland. The trip has been several months in the planning, and we've now reached the day where we're trying to find a few extra cubic inches in our carry-on bags for that extra pair of socks.

Trina and I will be in Scotland for 32 days. My main goal, as I've mentioned before, is to gather reference material in the way of gouache sketches and photographs for my next book, Through a Painters' Brush: Scotland. (This will be similar to my other two TAPB books, which you can find on Amazon.) Of course, I do want to see more than just a bonnie landscape of heather-carpeted moors and towering sea stacks. But on the other hand, I don't want to just skim through Scotland, ticking off boxes on a long list of tourist "must-sees." I prefer to dive in deep.

Originally, we'd planned to just keep our mileage within Abderdeenshire, which has plenty to sketch. We learned about Aberdeenshire from our artist friend who paints in the area, Marion Boddy-Evans, and from another artist, Sarah Burns, who has been sketching there while sharing her travels on YouTube. But as we pored over maps, a few other places called out to us, and we couldn't say "no." So, we've picked out a half-dozen places to use as base camps. For most of these, we'll be staying about a week—plenty of time to explore the local area.

Here's where we'll be and why:

B - Johnshaven. We'll start in this little village on the east coast of Aberdeenshire. It sits in the center of a richly scenic area that runs from St Andrews and north to Aberdeen.
C - Portsoy. Next, we'll head for Aberdeenshire's north coast. This town is also centrally-located and offers many good painting spots, from Inverness to Pennan.
D -Pitlochry. From Portsoy, we'll wander south to the heart of Perthshire. Pitlochry sits at the foot of the Cairngorms and Scotland's largest national park. Need I say more?
E - Isle of Arran. Next, we head west to the Firth of Clyde and Arran. Often called "Scotland in miniature," the island offers a mix of rugged mountains, rolling hills and a picturesque coastline.
F - Kirkcudbright. Although we'd planned to go directly east to our next stop, Berwick-upon-Tweed, we thought it wise to spend one night along the way. This little town in Dumfries and Galloway is known as an arts destination—so why not stop?
G - Berwick-upon-Tweed. Although this town is actually in England, it made sense to spend some time here. There's much to see, including the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne, which is famous for being the origin of the 8th century illuminated manuscript, the Lindisfarne Gospels. (And, interestingly, Berwick-upon-Tweed was once claimed by Scotland.)
A/H - Edinburgh. Finally, a city! We don't care for cities much, and our time in Edinburgh will be just enough to get in and then out of Scotland. We'll spend one night here before catching our plane home to Halifax, and unfortunately, we won't have time to visit the National Galleries of Scotland. I will try to get there on a future trip.

Now, you might ask, How do you plan to get around? Scotland has a fantastic public transport system that's made up of buses and trains. However, we didn't want to spend our time learning bus and train schedules and waiting. So, I went on Facebook and joined a couple of groups—Plein Air Scotland and UK Plein Air Artists—where I hoped to find other artists interested in helping us in exchange for painting instruction plus petrol and the occasional lunch, and possibly even lodging. For the wonderful artists who stepped up—thank you! I am ever so grateful, as you will help make our time in Scotland even more pleasant, and we'll have made some new friends. (For one particularly long leg of our trip, though, we did end up hiring a driver.)

That's all for now. In my next post, I'll tell you what I'm taking to Scotland. Also, if you would like to follow my travels, I'll be posting intermittently to Substack and more frequently (mostly with images) to Instagram.

By the way, if you’d like to support me in this trip, in return you can either get a nice little painting of Scotland or the painting PLUS the new book! Go here for more.