Pushy Little Daisy, Mt Tongariro Painting

I've included two new works which are inspired by a recent trip to the North Island of New Zealand/ Aotearoa. We visited the Tongariro National Park, which encompases the majestic Mt Ruapehu, Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe and thte Whakapapa ski fields. It was January though, so no snow! The landscape was ragged, mysterious and sparse. But when you look more closely, you find the most amazing multicoloured gravel, mosses, lichens, ferns, grasses and flowers. An almost alien surface. I snapped a couple of photos and we were off again. When I started painting again I found them in my phone and wanted to try and capture those little things. I don’t often paint things so realistically and I very rarely work from a photo, as they never work out and it's just really disappointing. Somehow the composition of the photos that I'd taken already lent themselves to a painting. So I just went for it and challenged myself to ‘look and put’. I am really happy with the paintings I created. They feel like a ‘zooming in’ on a camera lens. Usually in my work you will find some kind of horizon or a group of trees but these paintings are really focused on the smaller things in nature.