Story of HW in G. Valley Woods

Hello, Dai - at last I've got back to the comp to send the message to explain how Hidden Woman in Gledhow Valley Woods came about.

I started off with the photograph above. It's of a place where I regularly walk the dog and I liked the shape of the 3 trees (there's water to the left at the front). I also liked the colours although I don't usually try to copy colours - I like to use my own.

I started drawing from it with polychromos (see above below photo) and thought

a) don't like the polychromos, how annoying that I started off with these,

b) aha, there's the egg man - he's nice (the eyes were orginally bushes),

c) I don't like the yellow path.

Did like something about it though, so thought I'd paint it in acrylics and see what happened.

Thought, too, about the colours and actually thought I'd stop choosing my own and have a go at painting it with grey, magenta and green (with some red), like in the photo.

Tried to put this plan into practice and ended up with the most garish picture I've ever drawn (ironic that this result came from a starting point of trying to be 'realistic'.....). The biggest pleasure, however, came when the egg man changed into Hidden Woman - it seemed she was a

force rising up from the earth, all pink and powerful. The eyes, once again, were originally bushes. She seemed tarty with curling lips, but fun - I liked her - she made me laugh.

Your comments on this HW in GVWoods pic are just wonderful. I'm learning so much from you. I'm going to have another go at painting this soon, taking into account your comments about colours. (By the way, it was even more garish before I changed the path to grey - the path was red before and you needed sunglasses to be able to even look at it!) Just wanted to explain how it got to be as it was - thanks again, Dai, for your oh so helpful comments.