WHEN Fiona Haldane was about 12 years old, her father, a sea captain in the merchant navy, took her on a voyage with him, travelling to Africa and beyond over four of the most fascinating months of her young life. 

She explained, During the time he was away when I was a child, he used to send back pictures of India, China, seascapes and cine camera footage of his travels, so that I was seeing the world through his eyes. I think he would like to have been an artist, but the pull to go to sea was too strong to resist. 

When I went with him, it was the most amazing experience because I had his view and then my own to experience and it’s something I’ve never forgotten. It was all navigating by sextant and the stars, so coming into the ports along the coast of East Africa in the dark was amazing-funnily enough, you could begin to tell when you were coming near land by the scents and smells, rather than by anything immediately visible. My dad told me to take in the smells as well as the views and it was incredible-the scent of spices in particular is an incredibly evocative thing. 

"There were unbelievable things to see, too, of course. Crossing the Equator, I remember a fabulous sunset, then turning round and seeing the moon begin to come up in the blackness behind. That’s not something you forget in a hurry.'' 

Perhaps that experience cemented an already existing eye for a stunning viewpoint or a strongly visual image. But rather than inspiring the artistic youngster to "have paint brush, will travel'', it concentrated her mind on the equally stunning and dramatic aspects of subject matter closer to home. 

"I’ve always liked Scotland as a subject. There’s everything here, lovely skies, fantastic colours, good subject matter, stunning light conditions, beaches, wide vistas, flat, open terrain, the mountains - I should work for the tourist board, shouldn’t I? 

"My paintings are a love affair with Scotland, they really are. Something like the sheer drama of Ben Nevis is what does it for me." 

"I’ve never been attracted to abroad. Abroad for me is probably Ullapool!'' 

Fiona has been concentrating on landscape painting for around ten years now. She creates her pictures largely in pastels which might seem limiting to the outsider, but she is an artist who has pushed her medium beyond what are considered its normal boundaries. 

Many people, even other professional artists or commentators, often find it difficult to believe the range of tones and effects she achieves in pastels, but it’s a method she has not only refined to her own style, but one she is continuing to develop. 

Pastels are often seen as a good way of getting started in drawing, but Fiona found that she clicked with them almost immediately.I think it’s a case of you either like them or you don’t. Someone gave me some and I liked them. They’re often thought of as the perfect medium for life drawing and many believe that you can’t get the range of techniques or effects that you can achieve with oils, but I’ve never found that. It wasn’t a side of work that was encouraged at all at art school, except that I did a bit with its near cousin, charcoal, but I find it immensely versatile. 

At college, I did a lot of oil painting, so I suppose, from the start, I just used pastels the same way, the same density and intensity. And also at college, I did a bit of interior design which perhaps gives me a more solid approach to getting the effects I want. When I designed a kitchen, someone said to me that it definitely didn’t look as if it was going to fall down! 

Pastels can be very delicate, but I think they can also be hugely dramatic. I think I’d find delicate a bit difficult! I often start at the corner of a picture rather than with a central image because it’s cleaner and tidier to work that way-pastel can end up covering your hands and arms, if you’re not careful. 

Someone once described landscape painting as painting light and to a very great extent, that’s true. I love the work of James Morrison, for example, and his huge canvases in particular are exactly like that. 

Natural colour is as stunning as using bright, vibrant pigments. Nature can be so striking that it’s actually hard to believe you find these shades outdoors in Scotland. When I work, I don’t feel I have to accentuate or heighten the colour beyond reality, 

"It’s all there, really.'' 

At school, Fiona’s interest was in the human landscape-portraiture fascinated her then, but when she went to art school she studied textile design. "I could always paint and draw, but I began to realise that portraiture was a very specialised field. And I think it was the weather that drew me towards landscape. It just fascinated me. Even now, things like painting mist intrigue me so much or the texture of water and its reflections." 

"Seasonally speaking, I love to be out before spring really takes hold, where there are no trees and hardly any vegetation, just the bare ground and the grey sky."

"Trying to capture that is like painting nothing, but much harder!'' 

A strong sense of place attracts her, too-something that comes before her eye and rivets her artistic attention. "I quite often drive around looking for something that lends itself to my way of thinking about landscape, the right loch, mountain, bank of trees. Often the composition is right there in nature-sometimes, the light is the attraction or the very fact that the place is secluded, with a dark, rich feel about it."

"I like those huge differences because I want to paint the ends of the spectrum, not just the middle range. And Scotland is such a land of extremes, it’s no wonder that so much appeals to me.'' 

The McIntosh Patrick approach to landscape painting may seem far removed from that, but one of his famous quotes was that the great attribute a landscape painter could have was to be in the middle of endless sky and land and be able to frame with his or her eye, the scene they want. 

Fiona would certainly agree that it can take, sometimes, whole days to get a picture right, whether it’s panoramic or small and intense. 

"I teach adults and some of them find it hard to believe I can go through a day just choosing and settling on a composition. I say to them, ‘Look-and look again’. Sometimes the important part is the missing elements, what you leave out or the perspective from which you choose to view the scene. It’s about refocusing the eye, I think, the artist showing the viewer what to see. It’s like movie makers who introduce you to a new way of looking at things.'' 

The movie analogy is an interesting one. She loves films, especially old black and white classics like Casablanca and Wuthering Heights. By contrast, she says she dreams in colour, but when she draws, the two worlds seem to come together to create her artistic passion for capturing colour by way of light and atmosphere. "Because these films were made in black and white, the lighting was marvelous and when I think about it, I can see that has influence the way I draw what I see. I try to create every nuance in tone and that comes from the stark contrasts and subtle shadings you get in black and white films.'' 

Fiona has certainly now developed her own trademark view of landscape, a distinctive approach that isn’t limited, but explores her chosen subject and the medium in which she chooses to capture it to the limits and sometimes beyond. It appeals to others, too, with her work now in many private collections and as far from her inspiring homeland as Scandinavia and the US. 

And she has no qualms about things that don’t work. "If that happens, I put it in the bin. There was one of trees I had for months that I just wasn’t happy with. I get tetchy with myself but I don’t resent the ‘lost’ time-you’ve always learned something, I think. When I do demonstrations, I try to underline that for people. Watch and see what comes out of it, use what you’ve done, even if it doesn’t follow your first idea. And do it your way-you can use ideas and inspiration from other sources without copying." 

"But you should make it the best you can. ‘That’ll do’ isn’t good enough. If you like your own work, that’s enough, that’s why you’ve done it. If others like it, that’s a bonus and if you can make a living at it, that’s even better. It’s wonderful if the general public is prepared to pay their hard-earned money for something you enjoyed doing. But it’s not the first reason for doing it."

"I suppose I always think I can do better, that the next one will be better, or the very best.''

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