The Pleasant Valley Sundays were painted to exhibit at this year’s Pegasus Bay Art Show and are based on a view of Port Chalmers from the Lady Thorn Rhododendron Dell lookout on a misty summer’s day in 2017 (the photograph below).

“I used to think I knew all the answers. Then I thought I knew maybe a few of the answers. Now I’m not even sure I understand the questions. Nobody knows anything.”

Pete Nelson

I had a plan and I had time. I thought I had time. I had three months and then two… and then two weeks… two days… and when I ran out of time, I stopped.

For your viewing pleasure, I have put together three slideshows of the key stages in each painting’s progress:
WIP 1 ~ charcoal drawing / basic composition
WIP 2 ~ tonal underpainting to determine values
WIP 3 ~ exploring colours and resolving issues
Final ~ “A painting is never finished — it simply stops in interesting places.” Paul Gardner

Pleasant Valley Sunday I

Finding the shapes in the middle group of trees and adding one final pale blue glaze to the water and distant hills (in the final image) really made the whole landscape ‘pop’ ~ and then, with a careful scattering of power poles, I stopped. This style became the template for the other two paintings.

In case you’re curious (and I certainly was), the big red building in the foreground is Buffalo Lodge, a turn-of-the century hall that has been transformed into accommodation and listed with Airbnb New Zealand. We will definitely be checking it out next time we visit Dunedin.

Pleasant Valley Sunday II

The variety of houses in the second painting was a joy to behold. I initially thought the pointy building in the middle was a café because it didn’t look like any of the surrounding houses. In reality, however, it is a delightfully unusual residential property (online research is a wonderful thing). The roof is not conical and is not quite as tall as I’ve painted it ~ but that’s how it wanted to be painted and so that’s how it is.

Pleasant Valley Sunday III

The beautiful character house in the lower left corner (above) is one of my favourites in the Pleasant Valley Sunday series. I looked this one up online too. The house, built in 1907, was for sale last year. No doubt it sold for a little more spare change than we would’ve had available. Still, it’s nice to dream.

So… more trees, more houses ~ a splash of orange light and a bend in the road, deep purple shadows and a few more power poles. Three paintings completed. Or one triptych. Either way, that was quite a mission.

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It took a little over six weeks (six weeks of actual painting time) to finish all three. A lot of thought went into finding a sort of architectural abstraction in the trees and also into limiting the amount of detail in the buildings so that the manmade appeared more organic and vice versa. If it hadn’t been for the deadline of the art show, I would probably still be painting them.

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