Bonspiel 2009
from Paul Taggarts Spirit of the Highlands Collection
Oils On Board
also available as a Fund-Raising Limited Edition Print
in aid of North Highland Curling Trust
Dimensions: 215mm(h) x 508mm (w)
Framed Dimensions : 475mm x 768mm
In the first year of our relocation to the Northern Highlands of Scotland and along with the rest of the UK, we were gripped by one of those Torvill & Dean moments. A 2002 Winter Olympics Gold medal won by a British team, competing in a sport rarely followed outwith those in the know. Although around for at least 500 years; the sport of curling had only returned to the Olympics four years earlier, after a break of some 70 years.
Visit the British Pathé news archive website and you will find rare black and white footage of the annual Grand Match, traditionally held on the Lake of Mentieth, going back to the early 1900s. Thousands poured onto the ice, resplendent in kilts and bonnets, to sweep the ice and throw the stones. The term curling comes from the curl of the stone as it slides across the ice.
Not since 1979 has an outdoor Grand Match taken place and although hoped-for in the ideal freezing weather of January 2010, it never came to be the issue of crowd safety and risk assessment thwarting all plans for such a happening!
As such, an outdoor Bonspiel is now becoming an even rarer sight and is precisely what we had resigned ourselves to thinking. For although a subject on the list of paintings to include in the Spirit of the Highlands collection, we had all but given up any hope of chronicling such an event that is, until in the last days of 2008, upon overhearing a chance remark from one of the local curlers at a social gathering to which we had been invited.
Which is how, a couple of days later (the first days of 2009), we found ourselves invited to witness an outdoor Bonspiel in one of the frozen fields of Morvich farm, in Sutherland. The term Bonspiel describes the gathering of clans or alliances in a tournament and mostly these are now held indoors, or on specially constructed outdoor rinks. But here we were, at an impromptu Bonspiel, where members from a number of clubs were busily clearing the snow and preparing the ice for their required sheets (the playing area). As you can imagine, we were delighted to have been asked along and this painting is the result of that days efforts.
Amongst these players, the very people who subsequently took it upon themselves to form the North Highland Curling Trust; with a view to re-establishing a curling facility north of Inverness, as the previous facility had been closed down for re-development. Initial investigations soon established that such a facility would prove invaluable, not only for the curling fraternity, but also for the wider community and in attracting visitors from around the world. How could we not lend a hand with fund-raising, when others are voluntarily putting such efforts into making this project come to fruition a project which is gathering pace and is at the next stage of development, with the appointment of architects to carry out a technical site study.
This proved a tremendously challenging prospect; what with the thirty-five figures, two dogs and all the curling paraphernalia the aim being to record the essence of an outdoor Bonspiel, not to mention the hive of on-going activity that accompanies an impromptu gathering such as this.
I needed to capture the accompanying piper, the clearing of the snow and buffing of the ice to create the sheets and crucially, the movements in the throwing of a stone, or the bent of the figures leaning on their brushes all too easily this could have resulted in a static view and not the lively occasion of such a gathering.
Unusually, the answer was a symmetrical arrangement of figures. Those on the left are predominantly busy preparing the area, whilst those on the right are getting on with the games. These figures sweep upwards and outwards so that I could lead the viewer through the middle to the distant brazier, keeping the soup warm for the end of play.
The sun, coming in from the right, provides a golden reflection down into the ice, interrupting the symmetry of the composition. It silhouettes the hills on the right, which are cast into wonderful blue shadows; whilst those on the left are bathed in its glorious amber glow. Cool converging shadows break the white starkness of the snow, allowing sunlit patches to sparkle in brilliant contrast.
Duration : 0:6:57
Good paint brushes are important for 
This is a time lapse I did of one of my oil 
a bunch of 