Painter
Location: Grantown-on-Spey

Born and brought up in Glasgow – apart from a short spell during the war when the family was evacuated north to Cullen where he started school – James (aka Jim) Gardiner McDowall originally trained and worked as a draughtsman. Going to Art College in his youth, would have been a bit like the ‘Billy Elliot Syndrome’! So, it is only in the nine years since retirement that he has had the opportunity to exploit a long-standing interest in watercolour painting. He has recently taken the chance to broaden his experience through attending courses with professionally trained artists, last year being put through the mill by the internationally renowned watercolorist Alvaro Castagnet.

Now several years past, his first solo exhibition in 2005 – in Grantown Heritage Museum, Grantown-on Spey – owed much to the support and encouragement of the late James Fletcher-Watson RI, RBA, a watercolour painter of many years who had been an architect, as well. His paintings, sold in exhibitions, galleries and through commission, have since travelled as far afield as New York and Athens, Cambridge and St Andrews. He has exhibited at Still LIfe Gallery Aberlour, Logie Steading, The House of Bruar, The House of Beauly and Aviemore Gallery.

His interest in landscape stems from many years spent out of doors, first as a young man when he hill-walked and cycled; then as a ski instructor in the Cairngorms for 40  years – the original reason for moving to Grantown-on-Spey – and, latterly, as a landscaper and dry stone-waller.

Watercolour now provides an effective outlet for this interest in the natural scene, both at home and abroad, as can be seen from his paintings. With a maternal grandfather who made a living as a fishing boat builder in Cullen on the Banffshire coast during the late 1800s it’s not surprising that seascapes or coastal scenes also attract him. But, more recently townscapes, seem to have crept onto the drawing board. It depends how the mood takes him!

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Woodburn Art,
Woodburn Cottage,
South Street,
Grantown-on-Spey,
Inverness-shire  PH26 3HZ

Tel: 01479 872619