Fall Foliage

Every now and then an email drops into my inbox from Pete Marney, a former colleague and an excellent photographer.  His emails contain links to his latest set of photographs along with stories and anecdotes describing where and why they were taken.  It always makes a nice start to my day when they turn up and I spend a little while browsing through his pictures with my morning cuppa before getting on with my work.  His mails were one of the inspirations behind this blog as I wanted to find my own way of telling the stories behind my pictures so it follows that sooner or later I was going to use one of his pictures as inspiration too.  

Back in October I got a message titled "Fall Foliage" with a set of photographs taken on a weekend trip to somewhere called Skytop Lodge.  I'm not entirely sure where Skytop lodge is (the email didn't say) but it looks like a lovely place so, with Pete's permission, I decided to have a go at my own interpretation of those beautiful autumn leaves.  I used pastels to get the bright colours on a watercolour under painting.  It's one of those paintings that was hard to judge when it was time to stop.   I could probably have kept going for longer, adding to the trees but I'm not sure I'd have improved it by doing that so it's coming off the easel as soon as I've finished writing this.  

If you like this one than please go ahead and check out the original photo on Pete's website.  Unusually for me, I tried to stick pretty closely to the original photo this time.  I hope I've done it justice.

Looking Out My Window - Autumn

About a month ago I went to the David Hockney exhibition at Museum Ludwig in Cologne with a friend.  David Hockney is an incredible artist and if you haven't seen his work, I suggest you look him up.  I loved his use of colour and thought he captured the light beautifully.  A lot of his work is clearly inspired by the world around him.  I particularly liked his pieces which showed the same scene changing through the seasons.  

When I got home I decided to start my own Hockney inspired project.  A week later, I opened the bedroom curtains in the morning to a lovely sunny day.  The sky was a perfect blue and the sun reflected off the autumn leaves.  It was perfect so I decided to start my project there and then, quite literally on my own doorstep.  Now I'm sure Mr Hockney could have done the scene a lot more justice than I have but I thought I'd share the results with you anyway.  This is the view from my window.  

A couple of weeks later and after a particularly wet and windy night, the scene had changed completely.  Nearly all the leaves came down overnight and formed a carpet which covered everything.  I couldn't see where the road stopped and the path started.  I went out for a walk along the canal that day which was also covered in a layer of leaves.  I even saw a Heron stood under a tree.  I'd like to think he was admiring the view but he was probably just looking for fish under all those leaves.  I took plenty of photos so maybe there will be a few more paintings from that day still to come.