Shards

Here is a little story about how how the triptych "Shards" came into being. My painting friends and I really wanted to have a "painting day" because we were always busy with other things. So we decided on a time, had a nice shared brunch then set off for Cornwall Park. It was the middle of winter, but that didn't stop us, although quite a few of our fellow artists didn't make it due to the cold or sickness. Obviously its an activity best suited for the mellow weather of summer.

Making the most of it, we brought materials and prepared painting surface. There were only three of us on this occasion and it was raining, at one stage quite hard, but it was those moments that make the experience of painting unique (who else would be crazy enough to huddle underneath a tiny pavilion in Cornwall Park).

I brought along a piece of gutsy card with several layers of gesso, my trusty acrylics and Indian ink, gouache, my favourite scrapers (I hardly ever use brushes). While wandering around the park, I tried to find what I wanted to paint, and found a tree near the pavilion with gouged out symbols in the bark. With a flurry of my dynamic painting style, I etched in the painting surface. Then from the site, I used sand, mud, the rain and a piece of fallen bark to create the foundation for "Shards".