Cooks Beach (Pukaki) is a sheltered white sandy beach withPōhutukawa trees and “bunny tail” sand tussocks waving gently in the breeze. The three-kilometre long beach is on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula of New Zealand and is protected from the open ocean so does not get the big surf found on other beaches along the coastline. This makes Cooks Beach a wonderful place for families to enjoy the long summer days in and out of the water.
This scene shows the warm sun filtering through the sane dune tussocks on a warm quiet summer afternoon with the gentle surf beyond lapping at the shore. The beautiful Pōhutukawa trees in bloom provide shade from the sun. I enjoyed painting these, the lovely tones of green, thefiery reds and the tiny details in the masses of stamens.
Summer Afternoon at Cooks Beach, Coromandel Peninsula, New Zealand Original acrylic painting on cedar framed board By Michelle Bellamy 800 x 500mm Completed 2023
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...
While the mountains are freezing and the nights are long it's one of the best times of the year to settle in and put some quality time into painting… I have been making excellent progress on the artworks behind me in the above photo, already adding in lots of detail layers and rich washes of colour. Yet there's...
