A warm glow

Here is the progression of today's painting.

the rough wash

Just going for it

Building up shape and form with colour

Add caption

detail

detail

detail of foreground








It dries flat for a few days, then I will revisit it, make whatever adjustments fresh eyes see, and the photograph it properly.

I hope it leaves you with a warm glow.

Getting high.

I recently had a great opportunity to fly in a 2 seater plane over the beautiful Coromandel peninsula.. This 2 seater has one of those perspex bubbles that slide open when you climb in and out , the cockpit is tight enough to make ANY movement unwelcome (unless you are well acquainted with the pilot, nudge nudge, wink wink ), more dials and buttons than I have ever seen and has a big "EXPERIMENTAL" sticker on the side of it. I am not a great flyer ( I get nervous) but I trusted the pilot absolutely, so I was fine.

We took off and flew over the coastline from Pauanui , up to Opito bay via Cook's beach……and back! The only bit that freaked me out was the G-force when we did a tight turn to have a look at some engineering works that were acting as a break just off Cook's beach. I was NOT prepared to loose all the blood out of my brain and was quite nauseated by it. I had to lie down and recover a bit when I returned, but I have googled what to do next time….because there HAS to be a next time! It was magnificent up there! The view of the land is semi-abstract art, just as it is. I fell in love with the aerial perspective right there and then.

So I have to go up again and take some photos (just for reference) and the joy of being up there in a small plane was not what I was expecting to experience. A lot of my life is like that. Not what I was expecting.

Someone suggested I use Google Earth……but you know what? It's just not the same. It's like instant coffee vs freshly ground made- by- a- hot- barista coffee.

Blink
600 x 600mm
oil on canvas

This is my local hamlet, Ngahinapouri. Blink and you'd miss it. It has a school, a community hall, a golf course and about 20 houses. THAT. IS IT.

Anyway, it could be anywhere of a thousand places in the whole world and I like the universality of it .

I made a mess and I liked it!

I wanted to paint Te Awamutu ( the next town along from where I live) from the vantage point of a hillside home. The lovely owners of the house let me park in their drive and paint. It was a fabulous winters morning, perfect for painting.....but i could not resolve some issues with the scene and was becoming increasingly frustrated, so I decided to take to it with my big , rubber paint-shaper to remove the paint in the foreground and start again. BIG GUNS!!!

I scraped it off and voila.....was left with an interesting, abstract effect. I like it! I like it so much I left it just as it was and will look at it in another week and see what else I can do, if anything. I don't mind that I made a mess ( I got paint all over my sleeves, my face, my hands...everywhere ) or that it did not turn out the way I had envisaged it. Rather, I relish the new experience of what ELSE could make the scene "work" and it certainly follows my recent thoughts about abstracting detail and forms .

Te Awamutu from the hill
50 x 40 cm
oil on canvas board

You know that feeling when a word is on the tip of your tongue but you just can't remember it? You know that feeling of deja vu? You know that feeling when  someone says  something really fabulous about you but you weren't supposed to hear?  That's how I feel about painting right now. Very . Very. Frustrating/weird/ exciting.

Pump-house as black hole phenomena

I walk this road at least once a week. I sometimes walk here twice a week. I have done so for years. Do you know this is the first time I have ever seen this pump-house next to this hedge? I think it is because I have always looked past it to the pimple on the landscape known as Kakepuku, a 449 m volcanic cone, a mount.

I say pimple because it pops out of the relatively flat-ish landscape that surrounds it like a pimple on a teenagers birthday face.Boing! 

I went abstract because my mind had just been blown by the Dr Who-ness of the pump-house. I am quite sure it has not been there before.......but the path next to the hedge was well worn....maybe I talk too much when I walk!