Last light over some random lake

Just mucking around with contrast on this one. Quite like how it turned out.

Another mountain pic

Half-did this a long time ago, didn't like how it was panning out. Tidied it up last night - nothing special, but reasonable...

Sunburst

Tried to capture the rays of light from behing the cloud on this one. I quite like it in person for its simplicity, but the photo isn't so great... redid the photo (bottom one) after doing a bit more work on the water and the clouds on the left - I like the new photo better so I'm happy now :)

Mountain stream

This is loosely based on an Arizona photo I came across - without the signature peaks. The trees came out a bit lifeless on this one...not sure why, as they seemed quite vibrant as I was laying the pigment on the paper, but I guess sometimes it devolves as it dries :P

Mountains again

Tried another mountain pic with the intention of working on my depiction of the middle ground. Nothing spectacular or new really - about time that I picked something challenging again I suspect... I think I'll try to find a ref that really excites me - something I really wanna put up on my wall, and try to paint it well enough to end up there :P

Weekend pics

The beach pic is basically finished (not totally satisfied with the foreground - I know this is an area where I have some learning to do). The waterfall (yes it's a waterfall :P) isn't finished, but I need to have a think about how to complete it. It is clearly too empty in the middle of the page...

Yet another beach pic...

I wanted to try the style of painting rocks I did yesterday, so I decided to apply it to the trusty "beach at first/last light" setting. I liked how the rocks came out, but the dark clouds didn't balance the picture as well as I'd hoped, so I dropped in a tree to make it a bit less lop-sided. Overall I'm very happy with how this turned out :)

Ashley's Gorge

Well not exactly. This is a semi-faithful reproduction of a painting of some random North-American canyon. I was fasinated by the way the right cliff face was represented, and wanted to try it for myself. I think it's a really effective style, so I'll keep it in mind for future use....

Southern Alps at Sunrise

I'm really pleased with this one. I initially planned to go for quite intricate mountains, but ended going for quite simple representation - virtually the entire painting was done using a mixture of violet and cerulean blue, and the blended tones on the mountains look quite striking on closer inspection :)

"Lake Wanaka" completed

This is a (somewhat romanticised) painting from another of my Wanaka photos, this one looking out across the lake from the beachfront in the evening. I really like how this came out, especially the control of light and shadow, and also how distant the far mountain range feels - previously I would have aimed for more contrast there to make it a clearer focal point, but it wouldn't have felt as real...

Random bay painting completed

This one looks quite a lot better in person - quite like how it looks in person but not really fussed on it based on this photo...

"Lake Wanaka" completed

This is based upon a very similar reference photo to the stormy painting of Lake Wanaka I did a couple of months back...this time I went for a different style with a happier tone. I need to darken up the shadowed face of the distant mountain, but other than that I'm quite happy with how this turned out.


.... darkened it now - this is the new version:

"Wanaka By Night" completed

Played with the colours a bit here to try to give it a twilight-type feel. Semi-successful. Weird how the trees look far more transparent in the photo than in person :S

"Arthur's Pass" completed

Not much to say about this one. My main aim was to make the mountain pass look large and imposing.

Beach painting completed

I've had this sitting half-finished for a while, trying to decide what I should put on the beach. I finally decided the deserted beach itself could become the theme, so I framed it with trees and darkening sand as it moved away from the shoreline.