UKC

Jamie Hageman has been painting mountainscapes for over thirty years, in a trademark hyper-real style that will be familiar to UKC/UKH regulars. What does it take to produce these images? Here he looks at the long process both on and off the hill that goes into building a finished painting.

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Thanks for that peek behind the curtain, it's really interesting to see a bit of the process behind your beautiful paintings.

Brilliant stuff, absolutely love that one of the Cuillin. The light and landscape in the Na Gruagaichean one really stirs up a feeling of home too

Thanks for that, really interesting. I've often wondered how you make your paintings, still amazed at how you can make them seem almost like a photograph.

I have a print of your An Teallach painting, which I'm looking at now, hanging in my office. Helps my mind wonder to places I'd rather be while working.

Love your latest one from the top of No 4 gully. Will it be appearing in your print shop anytime soon? I have a space on my wall that's begging for it to be hung there.

Thanks!  I hope to have that painting made into a print later this year, or early 2026.  

That overused word, "stunning" seems unavoidable here. To someone who barely made it beyond stick-figures, these are four miles north of awesome, Jamie.

Thanks Norman!!!  

I have so many more Scottish mountains I need to explore and paint.  I reckon in about ten years, I'll have covered a lot of Scotland's greatest landscapes (though I was saying that ten years ago), and I'm starting to think about a book - part coffee table picture book, part guidebook, half crammed with sketches and drawings, half filled with descriptions and a few anecdotes, and all my best paintings.    

Go for it Jamie, would be a cracker.

My mum used to paint. Couple of years ago when I was clearing out the flat I came across some of the sketches she did before doing paintings that I'm very familiar with. I didn't know the sketches existed but when put with the paintings, they give more idea of what the artist is trying to capture.

So if you do a book, please include some of the sketches showing how the original idea developed into the full blown painting - you've then got two stories, one being told by the final product, the other showing the journey to get there - far more interesting.

And one more idea, if you do a book it'll no doubt end up being a high quality images, etc production. To get a feel for how a book might look, take photos of your paintings/sketches/etc, do a draft of what words you might want to say, and then use one of those photo album websites to mess around and get a feel for it. I suppose to the finished book it'll be the equivalent of a sketch to the final painting.

Thanks for that Michael.  You sound like you have prior experience of writing books.

Yes I absolutely will include sketches and drawings - like a path along the hills that leads to the summit - the final painting (or paintings).  I love Wainwright's sketches of cairns and bothies and points of interest.  More recently, Jeremy Ashcroft made beautiful drawings for his books - inspiration right there.

Gordon Stainforth cut and stuck everything down when he was making his books.  That's the way I work too!  

I'm still a way off getting a book together unfortunately, but I'm hoping by the time I'm 60 I will have made some progress.  

Nope, but I did the photo album thing with a lot of my mum's paintings and drawings, writing whatever I knew or could remember about each piece. Doesn't include everything of course but it covers a lot of the different styles and media she used throughout her life, from stunning dress design artwork in the late 40's (didn't know about those) to art class work/portraits right until Covid in her 90's.

Funniest bit was when a south African cousin was looking at it and remarked on a pencil/watercolour sketch from a game park in Botswana "oh yes I remember her doing that, there were some crocodiles down to the right".

I've still got to decide which ones I'm keeping and what's going to be thrown out - can't keep it all and her work isn't of sellable quality - but a good suggestion was to have a space on the wall for her work and rotate the pieces I keep.

Brilliant!!  A great thing to do. 

Thank you for this article, fascinating. I love your paintings, they make me look at the landscape more than a photo would do.

I'm intrigued by the drawing from the map. Is this really done as a guess of what the landscape might look taken only from the map? Very cool if so...

Thanks.  Yes it is.  I do it quite often, but I think many people who look at maps a lot like I do, would be able to visualise the landscape like that too.  I always err on the side of drawing it a little steeper and sharper than it might actually be, mostly to satisfy my desire for the most impressive views.  I then have an interesting time seeing how close I got!

I'm currently using maps of the Khumbu region to find and sketch interesting and unusual views of Everest from around the South side of Cho Oyu.  I'm hoping I get there next year.

Holy shit that's some impressive work. 

Thanks for the reply, I might try that myself. I suppose that the Cartography could be quite helpful if crags, scree etc is represented accurately. 

Absolutely!  And the best in the world for that are OS 1:25,000 maps.  

Always loved your work Jamie - it’s great to get an insight as to how you manage to achieve such fantastic images. I too have a print of AnTeallach!