Slieve Gallion ('the mountain of the heights' in Gaelic) is a peak at the south end of the Sperrin mountains which straddle Derry and Tyrone in the North West of Northern Ireland. It can be seen from my home and I have fond memories of family members telling stories and singing "Slieve Gallion Braes" when growing up.
Usually the longest it would take to finish a painting would be three months. If you include the hiatus the canvas took in March, April and part of May then from beginning to end "The Mountain of the Heights" took seven months. I usually merge imagery but here I was unsure. I experimented adding a mother and child image but this took away from the original image so I eventually decided the mountain needed to stand on its own.
