Grass sickness- tragic loss

   
 
Visited the studio this afternoon of Greer Ralston in Stirling, one of our most popular and well-known artists taking part in Open Studios.
 
Greer has a love of animals, which shows in all her work. She owns two whippets which feature in many of her paintings, along with hares and dogs.
 
 
But it was this image that caught my eye.  Then Greer told me the tragic story behind Loch Don, her beloved two-year-old hunter.
 
She died of grass sickness, a disease that has no known cause and no cure.
Since her death, Greer has raised around £10,000 for the charity researching into the cause of grass sickness, which for some mysterious reason is prevalent in central Scotland.
 
 
This is a print of Loch Don which  I bought.
Greer will never sell the original oil painting.
 
Once she was offered an open cheque for the work but she refused.
 
A recent change of direction for Greer, which has surprised many of her followers, is that she has started to paint Scottish landscape.
She put one on Facebook the other night and it sold within ten minutes! …and the paint was still wet.