"The Farmer's Track" is a view across the valley from my home in Pukerua Bay. The colour and the contrast are a bit exaggerated, but I think it makes a dramatic composition. I'm not sure about the sky though - the skyline is too close to the mid height of the picture. I may yet cut off part of the sky to make it a more pleasing composition.

If you're wondering where the track is, it's the horizontal lines towards the upper right side of the hills.

Back to landscapes for these two. The first is another in my Tararua Sunrise series - Number 3. This painting uses a limited palette of French Ultramarine, Green Ochre, Charcoal Grey and Titanium White. The sky was blocked in with Pan Pastel colours, then finished with soft pastel sticks. The background mountains were a mix of Pan Pastel dark ultramarine and pastel sticks.

Just to keep it interesting, I've done a couple of abstract paintings.

The first is an idea that's been floating around in my head for a while, and I had a piece of dark red pastel paper lying around (an offcut from the second Tararua sunrise painting), so I thought I'd have a go at it. On the whole I'm quite pleased with the result.

The painting uses Winsor Red and Winsor Orange, hence the name given that Winsor and Newton no longer make pastels.

Yesterday I did a small (300 x 230 mm) painting of Halong Bay. It's called No. 1 because I expect to be doing quite a few of Halong Bay :)

The painting is done almost exclusively with Unison pastels (light browns and greens in Winsor and Newton colours). I'm finding them good to use so far. They're very soft, so easy to get a sharp edge. Also the go on quite thick, so it's easy to blend. I think I'll be buy some more.

I decided to do a more abstract piece. It was going to be a very simple - just some large areas divided up with curved lines with a few designs on them. But it kind of changed along the way and the simple design got a lot more complex.

The painting is based on my memories of our recent trip to Vietnam. The bottom left is a simple representation of the terraced rice paddies in the northern highlands, with a bold dividing feature from the next section representing the misty highland hills near the south China border. The next sections are based on Hoi An in central Vietnam. We did not go any further south apart from passing through Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) on the way to Kuala Lumpur.

A bit of progress today - not as much as I'd hoped, but still should be able to finish it tomorrow barring interruptions.

The outline drawing was a bit fiddly and took a while, then sorting out the colours for the distant hills was difficult. Finally settled on Davy's Grey with a dark brown blended in, and Green Ochre for the highlights.

New Painting

Started a new painting, another Tararua sunrise with a slightly different perspective from the last one.

Pastels

The Vietnamese sampan painting is now called "The Lone Paddler", finished as shown below.

The boat and paddler are done quite precisely as planned, and the reflections on the water go back to the looser style of the background. I think it works as intended - interested to hear any comments?

Yesterday after finishing the Tararua painting I started an outline drawing for another Vietnam painting. Still in Hoi An, a painting of an old man sculling his sampan up the river.