Meet the artist exploring Scotland one painting at a time

For painter Rob Parkinson, living the nomadic lifestyle is nothing new.

For the 51-year-old has spent the last decade of his life on the move. But his way of travelling comes with a creative twist. While going from place to place, the artist paints a picture a day of what he sees in front of him.

In the last ten years, he has painted more than 2,000 oil paintings which document his life and what he sees.

Exploring various countries one painting at the time, Rob has now made it to Scotland. A few weeks into his trip, he has already travelled to and painted some of the country’s most scenic views, including Ben Lomond, Falloch Falls and the Isle of Skye under a new series he is working on called Northern Light.

Sunrise, Isle of Skye | Rob Parkinson

Using a tent as accommodation while on the move, Rob has the outdoors as his studio each day to capture his surroundings on canvas. With a rucksack weighing some 22kilos, the intrepid painter carries all his art materials with him.

A palette of at least 12 colours, canvases rolled up, white spirit in a glass bottle for oil painting and a special cardboard box to put the pictures in if they’re still wet when he needs to move are just some of the essential items he takes with him along with his camping gear.

Rob is wild camping in Scotland has he travels from place to place painting, using the outdoors as his studio | Rob Parkinson

So far, Rob has painted 12 pictures for his Scotland series, which are all oil on canvas and measure 12 inches by 12 inches, including the frame.

The collection so far includes ‘Sailing Boat on the Isle of Skye,’ ‘Morning Light Over Ben Lomond,’ ‘Sunny Day at Falloch Falls’, and ‘Into the Highlands.’

Morning light over Ben Lomond | Rob Parkinson

To keep him going, Rob posts photos of his paintings on his social media accounts, selling each canvas for £80, including the frame and postage. He also posts photos from his trip alongside the paintings like a travel blog, and to show where the inspiration for each piece of artwork has come from.

Despite only being in the country for a matter of weeks, the intrepid painter has managed to sell half of his Scotland canvases already. The money, he said, goes towards food and travel costs to support him living his life on the road and painting.

Having recently completed long distance walks in England, Rob said Scotland’s landscape offers a different story for both the painter and camper.

“I’ve always wanted to travel in the Highlands, I’ve been dreaming about it for years, so it’s amazing to be doing it,” he said.

“The views are just stunning. It is challenging though when you’re wild camping in some of these places and you get wet and your supplies get wet and you just have to keep going as there’s enormous distances between places in some areas.

“It was different in some parts of England where there are more little villages closer to each other, but in Scotland’s it’s just vast. It’s beautiful.”

Ben Nevis, painted by Rob Parkinson on his trip in Scotland | Rob Parkinson

Rob, who grew up in the south west of England, spoke about an alarming moment he had when he saw a hoof appear on the inside of his tent one morning while camping in the Highlands.

“I opened my tent to find a load of cows surrounding it so I just grabbed my iPad and boots and calmly walked away from them.”

A lover of nature, Rob said another challenging aspect of his journey has been witnessing litter strewn about in some of Scotland’s popular beauty spots.

“One of the first places I got to was Loch Lomond, where I camped.

“There were loud jet skis going up and down the water, and I saw a group of lads camping and playing smash the bottle, glass was going everywhere, and they left everything. It was a bomb site. It was just heart-breaking to see how some people treat these beautiful places, and it was just not what I had imagined seeing arriving in Scotland.

“At Falloch Falls, which is like a fairy glen, I saw McDonalds wrappers and litter all along the path. It was a real shock and upsetting to see how people can treat these beautiful places like this.”

Rob said in the next stages of his journey he will visit the Outer Hebrides, starting at Barra, followed by a trip to Orkney and then onto the north east.

The move to a nomadic lifestyle all started for the artist about ten years ago, when he realised he was spending more time jetting off in his van to be in the countryside than in his flat in London, where he was working in the film industry at the time.

Always drawn to nature, he decided to give up the property and move into the van full-time in 2013.

“This was before the van life craze kicked off,” he said, “so it felt like quite an unusual thing to do at the time.”

Still holding down a job as an account manager, Rob reconnected with painting and committed to painting one picture a day.

Momentum grew, and he posted his artwork on eBay - £40 per picture - alongside a blog telling whoever was interested the story behind each one. 

Within one month, Rob said he was earning enough to be able to give up his job and commit to painting full-time. 

“Two months later, I was in the south of France,” he said. 

“That was the first time I realised being nomadic and painting really worked.”

But it hasn’t been a smooth journey the whole way for the travelling artist. 

In 2021, he was involved in a bad car accident which left his van completely written off. 

“Things got really tricky after that, I lost my home, and I lost inspiration for painting from the crash,” he said. 

“Not long after, my girlfriend at the time and I split up.

“It was a really difficult time and I really needed an adventure.”

Without the van, he turned to walking, and set off on the South West Coastal Path, England's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for 630 miles, running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset.

He got back into a rhythm painting one canvas a day documenting his views and garnered a loyal following. Between them, and others coming across his artwork, every single one of the 152 paintings he did on the walk were sold.

You can view more of Rob’s paintings here.