A square painting using warm coastal oceans as its theme
I’ve got two surfing friends of mine to thank for inspiring me to paint this.
Their year-long trip to Australia has given me all kinds of ideas so far.
This is a celebration of those amazing blue oceans and their beautiful surroundings.
You can pick up imagery of our temperate oceans from almost any TV service provider: National Geographic, BBC, Discovery Channel – there’s a wealth of amazing footage out there to look through. However, it’s been the adventures of two friends of mine that have given me the much needed boost to go and paint using the colours and textures from some of Australia’s most beautiful coastal regions.
As keen and proficient surfers I’ve reveled in stories of their activities for some while now, by chatting and via Facebook. Names and phrases that describe waves and the behaviours of the ocean have been fused with beautiful landscape montages and sun drenched photographs to create a colourful and texturally deep painting that brings the ocean, it’s topography, life and movements together with the natural beauty that surrounds it.
But to really get immersed into this particular painting you need to get up close to it. When you do you’ll see an exhausting array of very finely applied details and effects. The reason for this was to echo the feel of the oceans themselves. At fist glance a vast open wilderness but on closer inspection a vast and complex ecosystem. It’s these principles that have been brought over into the construction of this piece.
One of the stand out things for me is the use of colour. It has been a very considered build up to starting this painting as I was very disciplined with the colour choice – and one that had to be just right. Part of this triumphant palette is the way I have fused and blended very small elements together.
Some of the applications are ridiculously small and have been applied with syringes and needles. It’s become a hallmark of my complex work now – using these unusual tools. But the result is spectacular. You can see what I mean when you click on some of the close up photos below.
It’s going to need space to hang and to get the best from it it needs to be where it can be pondered and stared at rather than passed by, like a hallway. But at least it isn’t too big so most walls can accommodate it.
