Keith Salmon - Cragganmore Distillery

I was originally contacted by Barbara sometime around the end of July. It was quite a surprise when she told me of the promotion they were planning and that they’d contact me after seeing my work on the Scottish Art Circle website.

Barbara was thinking of asking me to work with
the Glen Kinchie Distillery south of Edinburgh, but as this is a fairly rural/farming area I thought my work would be more suited to one of the Highland distilleries. I was also slightly concerned about the deadline they had in mind being so close. Nontheless, I was able to confirm my interest right away.

From the original brief the project certainly sounded interesting. As well as being quite well paid for the commission, I could see the real bonus being the tremendous publicity I would get from my painting … the image being sent to around 350,000 customers world wide.

The project required a painting based on the distillery but that the artists were encouraged to interpret this as widely as they wished. It seemed a perfect job for me. I did say that as I’d visited and walked in the areas around three of the distilleries, Islay, Oban and Dalwhinnie, perhaps I could work with one of these.

As it turned out, with only just over three weeks to the deadline I received an email asking me to work with the Cragganmore Distillery on Speyside. This was an area I really didn’t know and as my partner was off for a couple of days, we drove straight up there and spend a couple of days exploring the area around the distillery as well as visiting it.

We arrived on a beautiful evening and booked into a local hotel. Checking the map the next morning we found a small road running parallel with the Spey but on the opposite side to the distillery. I wondered if there were some interesting viewpoints looking across the river to the distillery on the other side. The countryside here was very beautiful - a mixture of low wooded hills interspersed by a patchwork of pasture and fields of ripening barley. We spent most of the morning picking our way along small paths near the river trying to get a glimpse of the distillery ... to no avail. The trees were dense near the river. We also realised from the map that although the Cragganmore distillery was very close to the river, it was in fact tucked down in a wee hollow in the landscape - impossible to see except on approaching it up the access road.

Morning had gone. In the afternoon we went to the distillery to get photos of the buildings.

The place itself was a mixture of new and old but it looked just like a small factory set in the countryside. It certainly didn’t have any of the distinctive architectural features of the neighbouring Speyside distilleries. The distillery manager and a couple of his colleagues were very helpful when I asked if I could find a view looking down on the distillery. I found na ideal spot from a field on the low hill at the back of the distillery - a solution to the problem.

From above the building offered a much better and more interesting aspect. The location also showed the place set as it was, in a hollow in the landscape.

My brief called for a painting that would be obviously of or about the distillery or product. I felt with this viewpoint I could produce a painting in harmony with the landscape (colours, textures and shapes) whilst still including the building, albeit a rather simple or vague form of it. I wanted to capture the essence of the place - not just produce a painting of the building.

We got back to Irvine the next day with around 200 photographs of the area and the distillery to use as reminders. The field overlooking the distillery (from which I got the idea for the painting), was just pasture. I thought for the purposes of the painting, I’d work it as one of the fields of barley, giving a large foreground area that was quite textural and play with the natural colours of the Cragganmore malt itself …for this purpose I just had to buy a bottle ... for research only of course! I wanted to show the distillery as an integral part of the Speyside landscape.

I originally planned to do two paintings, both similar but one being A3 and a larger one of larger A2 in size. I started painting both of these and played around with the composition but soon realised that with the limited time now in hand, I’d have to concentrate on just one piece and work out any problems as it went.

I painted my piece as I do most of my work - in acrylic paint and pastel. I tend to build the paintings in alternative layers of paint and pastel, protecting the pastel using a very fine layer of matt acrylic varnish. The varnish is painted on with a large soft brush and then most of it dabbed off by covering very briefly with a sheet of kitchen towel. This leaves just enough varnish to ‘seal’ the pastel but doesn’t leave enough to create that ‘glassy’ varnished look. As the painting proceeded I found it quite difficult getting the balance between the more ‘abstract’ elements within the painting and the elements depicting the distillery buildings. It was a difficult balance to get. The painting was about half finished when I sent off photos showing 'work in progress' and I was ucertain as to what reaction I’d get as I was still not completely sure what the client was after. The brief led you to believe you had an almost free reign but then hauled you back in again.

Anyway I received a call a day or so later from Brett to say they really liked the way things were going and that they wanted to visit my studio to see the work and do a brief interview.

I felt a lot happier knowing this and managed to finish the painting by the time Brett and his colleague arrived. I sent the painting down to London the following day - two days ahead of schedule. I needn’t have worried about the deadline after all!

In conclusion I feel that this commission has been quite successful. I’m not used to working to such a tight deadline but I have proved to myself that I can do it, when called to.

The project gave me the opportunity to visit a part of Scotland I’d never been to before - something I always find exciting. Most importantlly thing though I hope the coverage the paintings get as a result will help promote me as an artist, and lead to even greater opportunities.

It was interesting to learn that all the artists on the project had been chosen from the Scottish Art Circle website and hopefully everyone else has had a similarly good experience as I've had.

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