Scotland has been one of those places that I wanted to travel to for years. I’ve always loved English literature, art and movies, so I always wanted to visit the UK at some point, but a few years ago I started to look into my family history, and I found out that I have some ancestors from Scotland, so that was intriguing to me and made me want to go more on a personal level. Once I started to watch the show Outlander and saw all the beautiful landscapes my interest in visiting grew even more. After the worst part of COVID was over and it was safer to travel my fiancé and I decided to take a trip, so we chose to go to Scotland for two weeks. On the trip we explored Edinburgh and Inverness and took a couple day trips to view the highland areas near Inverness.

One of those trips was to the Isle of Skye. On that trip we were guided in a van up the Quiraing Mountain Pass. It was an amazing part of the trip. The road was barely more than wide enough for one car, so at points we had to pull over and let another person going the opposite direction pass. We also saw some bicyclists who were actually making the trek up the mountain as well. I was really impressed by their abilities because not only was the road long, steep and winding, but it was very windy out that day.

Once we got to the top we were let out in a parking area, so that we could go out and see the view from the edge. It was an amazing view. You could see the road as it wound around all the way down to the valley. The contrast between the bright blue of the sky and the green of the grass was beautiful, and the wind buffeting against us created an awe-inspiring experience. I knew I wanted to paint it once I got home. There were so many beautiful and captivating views to see in Scotland, but this view was one I cherish, and I’m glad that I was able to express it in this painting. It’s one of my favorites from my Scotland series.