I saw this truck at a livestock saleyard and thought it would be wonderful to paint but it was very very difficult! I also spent ages looking for a cow braced in the back of a truck and then, by chance, found this one just stood in the herd of Friesians I had photographed for 'Cow'.

Because using the truck was always going to make this a strongly compositional piece I let go a bit and used arrows, road lines, directional people, a good square building, the other squared-off truck and finally a great lump of tree to trap your eye right inside the frame whilst simultaneously directing it outside.

There were all the usual problems of getting the road to sit down flat, and I could NOT get the tone of the mudguards right, but I made it even more difficult for myself by completely changing the sky, from grey clouds to the sunset, a long way into the piece. You imagine repainting all those bars!!

This was the last piece for Stella Dimadis and, just as the show was about to open, Tamsin, previously of Richmond Gallery and freshly returned from the UK, asked me to come and join her at Pivotal Gallery, which I subsequently did, and have remained there ever since.

** There are more notes on Trucks on the 'Trucks' Page, more notes on the figure on the 'Compare Use of Mormons' Page and on the joggers on the 'Compare Joggers' Page.