From Scratch and Scribble to Painting... the Story of Cloud Trail and Flourish

Aiding and Abetting

Sometimes the initial observation isn’t the actual backbone of a painting’s message…sometimes it has more to say. I stay with an image and let it stretch out. I paint the image over and over and let it evolve.

A day adventure in Gertrude’s Saddle, in Fiordland South Island, Aotearoa-NZ is spent scrambling through thick ground cover, up smooth rock between mountainous walls sliced by continuous waterfalls. Pools of water and clouds and the trail you follow become intermingled. The first small gouache has these mountainous forms disappear in the background. With each new interpretation of this scene, the trail becomes more clear from ground into the clouds.. as if the clouds are leading the tramper up beyond the tops of the mountain peaks.

Flourish, 40×60”/102×152cm, Mixed Media

The most recent work, Flourish, inspired by Gertrude’s Saddle, there is a new, head-on viewpoint. There is no fellow tramper leading the way, there is only YOU, the viewer, who must navigate the strange space.