A Visual Exploration of the Scottish Hills

Painting of The Aonach Eagach Ridge in winter by Deziree Wilson
Deziree Wilson 25 February 2022

I have sketched since I was old enough to pick up a pencil, but although I’ve always been drawn to the beauty of wild places, I didn’t really venture into the mountains until my mid-20s, when I began climbing. I quickly realised I had discovered my passion in life, and it took me to places I would never otherwise have visited. 

Mountains have a ruthless beauty, which makes for an alluring visual narrative. Scotland’s mountain ranges also have distinctive personalities, due to variations in geology, climate, flora and fauna. I try to represent these characteristics in my artwork through texture, tone and colour, recalling the sharp, crystalline gneiss of the far north-west, the mellow tones and soft contours of Torridonian sandstone, or the corrugated, sparkling mica schist of the central Highlands.

Painting of the Northern Corries, Cairngorms, winter.

Ultimately, I am seeking to visually translate the sensory experience of being immersed in a wild landscape. I want the viewer to feel the transient, kinetic nature of these raw elements: the roughness of rock; the whip of spindrift; the squeak of ice underfoot; the surge and pulse of the sea. 

I don’t tend to stick to one particular method, but instead use whichever materials I feel will best convey these themes. Charcoal pencils are particularly good for recreating the hues and textures of rock, especially when applied to coarse paper. I might use chalk to convey a stormy sky, watercolours for the fluid lines of a river, or a fine pen to accentuate a climber’s fingers. Although I generally work from photographs, I also draw on my own experience of the mountains, and my tactile connection with them. My work is very detailed, and I need to fully understand the essence of these elements to accurately represent them, but once I begin sketching, I lose myself in the ebb and flow of the form, and the compositions seem to find their own rhythm, independent of any active thinking on my part. 

The Aonach Eagach Ridge in Winter (2017)
Deziree Wilson
Watercolour and charcoal pencil on paper

The Northern Corries (2019)
Deziree Wilson
Mixed media on paper

Creator’s biography

Deziree is an artist, writer, editor, presenter and film producer with a deep love of Scotland’s wild places. She has a first-class Master’s degree in journalism and extensive experience of producing creative content for a range of organisations, including BBC Scotland, Scottish Mountaineering Press, Scottish Mountaineering Trust, Climb magazine and Waymaking – An Anthology of Women’s Adventure Writing, Poetry and Art. Deziree recently edited the award-winning publication MacInnes: The Fox of Glencoe and is currently working on a biography of the late Tom Patey.

Visit more of her art here.