Mud 

122 x 106 cms  2003

$3300 Sold

I wanted this painting to be divided rigidly into three horizontal sections, within each of which a lot of things happened. It was an extremely difficult piece to paint.

I wanted the mud to be more rutted, and much more real than the first version (see the 'Compare Mud' Page), and the wire in the gate to be uncompromisingly straight, while behind it the flat paddocks rose to the sand-blown outcrops of trees and rocks I also used in Shorn Sheep and F100 (see Gallery 2003 - 2004), and above it all the sky rose lightly and the crows fought. The blocking sheets of galvo are still propped up behind the studio.

Finding flying crows is near to impossible, let alone fighting crows, though I have been collecting sources of birds in flight for years, even resorting to photographing a freeze-framed video on television, but people simply do not film ordinary birds. Heaps of hummingbirds but no crows. (No, 'The Crow' had no good flying crows, and 'The Birds' was too blurred!) But I did my best, they're anatomically fairly correct and, believe me, they have exactly the right number of wing feathers.

**There are more notes on Mud on the Compare Mud Page.