So Mum who has been my biggest critique since I started painting as a teenager popped around last week. After much deliberating she pointed out the fact that the foreground in Lady Emily at the Cass was looking a bit uninteresting, something that I’d been struggling with for the past weeks, while working in the many layers of colour. She pointed out the hint of speargrass bushes dotted around in my very terrible reference image (as I took these snaps in quite a hurry as I only had a minute of nice light before the sun vanished after a very stormy day) and mentioned that I had not included these. So now they are being included amongst the tussocks, and I must say they are very much improving the foreground…
A while ago I explored the Arthurs Pass area with my good friend Dulkara, we walked up the Taramaku River, bush bashed through the thick & steep bush up to the open tops where we spent three days traversing the ridges. On the second afternoon, after lots of up and down ridge-line scrambling we approached Lake Morgan...
Camp Stream Hut, a historic musterers hut on the Te Araroa trail near Tekapo with Roundhill in the background. A magical place to visit, especially in the late afternoon although once the sun falls it becomes bitterly cold. On this particular trip the walk out was sodden with snow melt and my feet lost feeling in the last main river. Brr…
Inspired by an almost dreamlike trip along ridge lines, past Lake Morgan and to the top of Mt O’Shanessy the painting is slowly taking shape. I really wanted to capture those warm, golden, summer West Coast rays that you...
