Painted in June/July, 2025. 30”x24”.
Acrylic on stretched canvas. Price $720.00 Cdn. Unframed
Some of my best reference photos come about when I’m least expecting them. Seven years ago we had a wonderful time exploring New Zealand. Heading towards Waipu beach on the North Island, we stopped at a lookout that had a beautiful view across rolling green hills, down to a wooded valley and then up again to a high ridge. A band of horses were slowly making their way down the slope towards a copse of trees.
The interesting thing about this landscape is that the view point is looking down to the valley floor, but then the hills rise back up to a high ridge. The horizon is lower than expected and there is very little sky in this painting, but the receding hills create various bands of colour, texture and atmospherics. The horses, of course, are the focus of the painting, but the interesting vista encourages you to explore the landscape. Painting horses remains a challenge and this painting was no exception. Especially because I am looking down at the horses from a higher altitude. The most appealing aspect of this painting for me is the way the ridges and hills form receding bands of colour and texture. The geography of the steep slopes formed natural ridges that created interesting lines of light and shade, defining the natural modulation of the hills like a topographical map. I started with blocked in colours, but as the painting evolved, shapes and forms grew out of these various bands of colour. I let the rhythms of these shapes evolve as I painted until I got the sense of atmosphere that I was looking for.
