Date:- 21st March. Three young visitors pose to give the painting scale. As you can see, by this stage I have blocked in the colours and am well underway. Most of the shadows are in, which helps give it depth, and I have 'knocked back' the background trees by scrubbing over them with a thin coat of white. I also did the same with the "Angel of the Water" fountain. Incidentally with this fountain I broke one of my own self inposed rules. Never depict any moving object on a backcloth. (flying seagulls etc) but made an exception here with the water from the fountain. Note how I have used dark foliage to emphasise the stonework of the steps balustrade. Tomorrow is the last day of work on this cloth, when I will put in flowers and hopefully put more texture into the stonework. I decided the sunshine should come from the top left which then gives me an excuse to paint the shadows on the steps which in turn helps to define them as separate steps. I have also to paint in the Dana Discovery Center on the left at the back of the lake. Note the dark foliage top left which helps to frame the scene and give it depth. When i I was involved in TV filming we used to call these "dingleberry shots". In fact I have known cameramen cut off a small branch to dangle in front of the camera to get this effect.

CLICK here for a close up of the children