Liz McQueen

Red Route

I’m a landscape painter based in Eskdalemuir, working with acrylics, inks, and watercolours to explore the atmospheric landscape surrounding my home – moorlands, forestry, and the valley’s dramatic weather systems. Walking is integral to my practice, helping me understand this terrain on foot before translating those experiences into paintings back in the studio.

Behind the Scenes
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About My Practice

I’m a landscape painter based in Eskdalemuir. Originally from Wales, I’ve been living here since 2017 and participating in Spring Fling since 2020. I have a BA Hons in Fine Art from Winchester School of Art and am a member of Visual Arts Scotland and the Society of Scottish Artists.
Walking is integral to my practice. I explore off the beaten track, forming an intimate relationship with this valley that’s been inhabited for thousands of years – from stone circles and sheep folds to hut circles and hill forts. Recent changes from commercial forestry and agriculture have left shapes and scars across the landscape that I interpret through my work.
I’m influenced by artists who used walking as part of their practice like Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, and Andy Goldsworthy, and by expressive abstract painters like Helen Frankenthaler. The stark silhouettes of Sitka spruce plantations – planted in rigid blocks across the hills – show up repeatedly in my paintings as solid colour blocks and geometric shapes.
I took a break from Spring Fling in 2025 to focus on research. I received VACMA funding for mentoring with Orkney artist Samantha Clark, which has pushed my practice into new territory. I’m starting to explore earth pigments collected from archaeological sites along the valley, particularly yellow ochre from Overrig.

Tools & Materials

I prefer water-based media – fluid acrylics, ink – for their immediate results and quick-drying nature. I like working on found materials like packing paper and cardboard, as well as canvas.
Compositions develop from a combination of sketches made while walking, photographs, and memory. My approach is intuitive – I let watery paint flow naturally, building up layers through washes and glazes, fat paint and thin. I use palette knives, house brushes, and found objects to create a variety of marks and textures.
In each painting I’m trying to describe the landscape within these layers – conveying both my own impressions and a sense of the marks left behind by past inhabitants of this place.