I painted this one recently. It's of a young arbutus tree on Saltspring Island.
It's looks nothing like the original. I had a lot of trouble with the luminosity of the original subject. So I had to improvise. The original subject looked quite different from what I painted. I suspect those not familiar with an arbutus tree may not know what to make of this painting. It certainly is one of the most alien like trees out there. I think it's the strangest looking in Canada - yet the most beautiful.
I initially tried to paint an impression of the shrubs and rock in the background, but all that did was take away from the tree. I knew I needed some colour, so I carefully through trial and error came up with this.




I'm currently experimenting with the most ideal way of photographing my paintings. I know the best light is natural light for this sort of thing. It's a dark and rainy this time of year, however. So I'm having to taking pictures in different rooms in different times of the day to figure out what are the most ideal conditions. Also, I don't want the camera lens to distort the image, so zoom level and position of the camera are considerations.
It's proving a bit more complicated that I thought it might.