AS MANY of us are discovering now that we are being allowed to roam around our own land more freely, there are some places in Scotland which get on our visual nerves and burrow beneath the skin.

Social media feeds across the land are currently buzzing with images of our holidays at home and the chances are you'll have seen photographs taken on the wild expanse of Rannoch Moor or in Dunbar's bustling harbour.

As a new exhibition reveals, both these locations hold infinite appeal to artists. Moor and Dunbar Sketchbooks features two new collections of work from Dominque Cameron and Ann Cowan.

The show, which opens at Fidra Fine Art in Gullane next weekend, has been a year in the making. The two artists were putting the finishing touches to paintings and drawings inspired by these two very different locations as lockdown began to bite in March. As an almost ghostly reference to the time, there are no people in either body of work.

The coastal town of Dunbar in East Lothian – all architectural angles, winding side streets, red sandstone and bustle – is best known for being the birthplace of conservation pioneer, John Muir.

Rannoch Moor, on the other hand, is fifty square miles worth of bog land, surrounded by glowering hills and squally skies. A high plateau which flows either to the Atlantic in the west or to the North Sea in the east, people generally pass through it as they drive or walk.

Both artists have their own unmistakable style but there is a robust honesty about the lines which underpin their work. They both work quickly and often in situ which leads to a fluidity which bursts off the paper or canvas.

Cameron and Cowan are friends, who got to know each other initially in the ether of Twitter. Both had exhibited before at Fidra and the idea of exhibiting together evolved gradually following discussions with Fidra Fine Art owner, Alan Rae.

"When we started out it was difficult to know how it would all come together," says Ann Cowan, who lives in Edinburgh with her family. "We both post our work on Twitter after a work is finished so we could see both bodies of work coming together. We also both produced small books to accompany our work and seeing the books come together, you could see that the two bodies of work were complementary."

The books, which are available to buy from either the artist or the gallery, offer up a preview of what to expect from their joint exhibition. Cameron’s book is accompanied by poetry by Mark Goodwin, which he wrote after seeing her work posted on Twitter. The two have yet to meet in person.

In contrast to Cameron's muted monochrome palette, with its occasional bursts of heathery green and brown tones, Cowan is prone to bursts of vivid colour, be that in a riot of double yellow lines on a deserted side street or in a harbour scene in which a royal navy-hued boat bobs atop textured turquoise water.

There are traces of their respective past lives in all the drawings and paintings. Cowan, the daughter of an artist mother and architect father, began her working life as a lawyer but gradually she began to be drawn back to art and now works as a full-time artist. Cameron, who lives in Fife, trained as a photographer at Napier University from 1989 to 1992 before returning as a mature student to study for a Masters of Fine Art (MFA) at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee from 2013 to 2014. She says that as a child, landscape and walking played an important part in her life and her first instinct when she visits a place is to map it in her own mind by walking – and now drawing.

She had never visited Rannoch Moor prior to last year but it has seeped into her soul like peaty rainwater. "This project began with the question; how can you paint emptiness? I chose Rannoch Moor for this exploration because Rannoch Moor is vast. The weather is fickle. You can witness cloud, rain, sun and snow in one day at any time of the year with little warning. Watching a weather forecast is rarely accurate. The plan was to try and express the moorness of the Moor. To understand at least a little of what this place is; its silence and anxiety tinged beauty.

"I loved the adventure of this landscape – the wide horizon, the sound of the wind. It is not empty, but full of life and death; whole cycles play out underfoot, a record of our history, of time."

Cowan grew up in The Borders and Dunbar is an area she has known all her life. She explains: "In recent years, I've been a regular visitor; walking my dog at Belhaven, exploring the town and getting to recognise all the boats in the busy harbour.

"The town has a wealth of beautiful old red sandstone buildings with interesting architectural details. Orange pan tiles form wonderful roofscapes. The industrial outskirts are grittier, but just as interesting in terms of composition.

"The harbour is a constant source of inspiration with its fishing boats and lobster creels. Follow the cliffs of deep burnt sienna along the coast, past Winterfield, to Belhaven and you discover miles of sandy beach with tall ochre grasses set against colourful beach chalets."

By painting particular places at a particular time, both Cameron and Cowan have created artworks which blow post-lockdown Insta-perfect photographs off the hashtag park. Cameron's depiction of a passing storm crashing over a mountain is conveyed through a wet and inky black and white wash, while Cowan – vanishing point maestra that she is, takes us on a town walk like no other to vanishing point and beyond…

* Moor and Dunbar Sketchbooks opens next Saturday August 22 with an appointment only private view. The gallery is allocating 20 minute slots to one person or family group at any one time, on a first come first served basis. Call or email owner, Alan Rae, for more details.

Moor and Dunbar Sketchbooks, Fidra Fine Art, 7-8 Stanley Road, Main Street, Gullane

EH31 2AD, 01620 249389, https://www.fidrafineart.co.uk/ Tue-Sat, 11-3pm, Sun, 12-3pm. Closed Monday. August 22 to September 20

Critic's Choice

If you're tired of beige and monochrome, then Alison McWhirter's vibrant colour-soaked paintings are the tonic you might not have known you were looking for…

Most of the new paintings in Painted Love at The Smithy Gallery in Blanefield were created by McWhirter during lockdown. It's the latest in a series of exhibitions themed around the subject of Love. If you didn't have Soft Cell's version of Tainted Love in your head before reading this, you will now.

Acting as a magnet for tired retinas, McWhirter's floral still lifes are almost sculptural in bearing. They pulse with high colour energy and vibrant mark-making.

There's a quickening beneath the surface of all McWhirter's highly-textured paintings, which throws up a mixter-maxter of emotions in the viewer. Writing in the exhibition catalogue, art historian, Dr Colin Bailey , describes her "sensuous use of buttery impasto" and this phrase perfectly captures the essence of her floral still lifes.

A love of literature also clings to the surface of McWhirter's paintings and Painted Love has several examples of this passion. Remembering Iris and Yellow Iris refer to Iris Murdoch. In his essay, Bailey states that the novelist is someone who has "intensely personal" importance to McWhirter, having been introduced to Murdoch's work by her father.

Two further works, Fleurs du Mal and Stagings; Early Morning, are connected to the written word. The erotic poetry of Charles Baudelaire's collection, Les Fleurs du Mal, is behind the latter. An abstract, high key colour collection of energetic and sensuous mark-making, you might have to find someone to fan you with your eyelashes after clapping eyes on it.

Contemporary nature writer Robert Macfarlane's use of the word "stagings" to describe the habit of some birds (starlings in particular) to gather in large groups at dusk has led to Stagings; Early Morning. Unlike McWhirter's floral still lifes, both these paintings are less buttery and quieter in aspect.

The exhibition opens tomorrow between 1-5 pm. Contact the gallery in advance to secure a time slot.

Alison McWhirter: Painted Love, Smithy Gallery, 74 Glasgow Road, Blanefield, G63 9HX, https://smithygallery.co.uk, 01360 770551 Tue-Sat, 11-5pm, Sun, 1-5pm. Closed Monday. August 16 to September 13

Don't Miss

Lines from Scotland at the very fine Carnegie Library in Dunfermline features the work of 23 Scottish artists, inviting viewers to appreciate the "modesty and mastery" in their work. Curated by Amanda Game in collaboration with Diana Sykes of Fife Contemporary, featured artists include; Wilhemina Barns-Graham, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Elizabeth Blackadder, David Shrigley, Andy Goldsworthy and Hanna Tuulikki. Pointing towards a new "blended" model, new online content complements the exhibition and provide a rich legacy resource.

Lines from Scotland, Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries, 1 Abbot St, Dunfermline KY12 7NL, https://www.onfife.com/venues/dunfermline-carnegie-library-galleries, 01383 602365, Mon, Wed & Fri 10am–4pm; Thu 10am–6pm; Sat 10am–3pm and Sun 12pm–3pm. Closed Tue. Online booking in place. Until October 25. Free.