Hi all,

After a summer away visiting the folks in Canada, finally another painting. This one is taken from a local family hike to the 800 year old castle ruins at Wildenburg (Kanton Zug, Outing to Ruine Wildenburg). For those of you that live around here and haven’t been, I would really recommend it. Near the city of Zug, it feels a million miles away from anywhere. Following the trail through the dense and hushed forest near the Lorze gorge, these waterfalls come upon the walker as a bit of a surprise – no less so than the ancient but well preserved ruins of the defensive fortress a little further above. I have spoken to many from the area who did not even know these ruins exist, so hidden they are.

The scene itself is reminiscent of autumn because my experience of it was autumnal (weather, colours, etc.). In reality the ruddy foliage was left-over from the previous year. With such bold and dramatic colour I cannot wait to get back there in the real coming autumn, and maybe revisit the theme in another painting…

Back to the painting. As usual I like it a bit and I hate it a bit. Nothing new there. I fancy there is a bit more control and maybe a bit more subtlety in the textures and colours used. There is also a bit of discordance between styles (ie the representational nature of the pool at the foreground versus the weird ‘floating in space’ look of the foreground mossy boulders. Truthfully, I have given up even thinking much about it, preferring simply to paint and have fun. And fun it was (in between wanting to throw it at a wall and kick it in, of course).

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy it.  Me, I am already on to greener pastures (or rather, a picture of our favourite fishing lake in the Okanagan.

Happy Sunday to you all – HD