Sergei Bongart’s advice to study nature, exaggerate light and be less inhibited (the quote I posted here on Friday) is more than a little to blame for this painting which I started on Friday morning and finished off on Saturday afternoon. It is based on one of the photographs I took during our DC-3 flight over Christchurch last year.

Because I wanted to exaggerate the landscape, I decided to go with a fairly adventurous palette (inspired by, among others, the late, great Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s ‘Blobs grow in beloved gardens’ 1975 and ‘Green town’ 1978.

But where did the red hills come from? Well, the bright red is my complementary exaggeration of the dark green trees. And the sheep? That was my way of introducing a calm focal point ― something to suggest that perhaps the hills were not on fire : )