Painting stories

‘The Queens Lots’

January,2010.

This first image, shows the final street layout, and the bush lot numbers.

Tomorrow, I will finish detailing the street, and then I will begin the bush work !

WATCH THIS  SPACE !

‘Wild Rivers’

840 x 1115mm, Oil on Canvas, September 2009

The piece before the visual rivers are added.

Celebrating the waterways of New Zealand, the rivers ,streams and creeks. the wild untamed meandering rivers loaded with history, stories and mythology. This work takes as  much pleasure in the written word as the basis of the composition, the words naming our waterways, their names often giving hints of their histories and revealing their stories. Then the piece is overlaid with a mighty swirl of milky river, then a second overlay of the dancing stick joyfully laying down another path and way of traversing a river.

Detail of finished piece, see the ‘recently completed works page’ to see the full image.

‘Fishing Stories and Methods’

Oil on Canvas,840 x 1115mm, September 2009.

Detail of work in progress,

This fishing yarn is inspired by the wonderful book of Eldson Best,’ Fishing methods of the Maori’, published in 1900. In this work against a deep background I have overlaid nets and implements of early fishing techniques with script of Eldson Best’s wonderful prose and descriptive language, Milky (ghostly) white rivers snake their way across the canvas. Then if enough netting hasn’t already occurred and another layer of netting is spread over the canvas, tied and secured, completing the piece.

Detail, before the sticks are fully  tied.

Looking from below at the finished piece.

This is only a detail of the finished piece, please see ‘Recently completed works’ Page for a complete view.

‘Cherry River Run’,

Oil on canvas,835 x 1120mm, July 2009

This piece from July, is a blast from the past , back in the nineties I completed several sucessful pieces which featured foliage, many being painted while residing in Ireland and so featured leaves from the Northern Hempishere. With there strong autumn colourings and a certain strength of character these  works reflected a period in my career of discovery and fertile thoughts, mixed with Irish music and poetry !

This current piece reflects that period with its use of coloured Cherry leaves, picked up from the base of the trees which line my driveway. The richness of their greenery has been surplanted by the buttery yellows, oranges and browns of autumn. The river cuts through the foliage with the leaves arranged on the vertical and the horizontal planes. On compelation the river form was not as strong as I had hoped, so a second river was overlaid in a form of a stick winding its way over the cherry leaves, and it worked wonderfully, bringing the piece alive !

Detail of ‘ Cherry River Run’ (to see  finished piece go to’ recently completed works page’)