Having found this magnificent tar truck on the Sturt Highway, and the crash barrier quite close to home (a truck had gone through it), I did the painting immediately but, while the composition just fell together between the truck, barrier and sign, I got stuck with what was actually happening behind the barrier. The reality was some long scrubby and completely shapeless grass, so I ended up using a washed out gulley we had come across at Banrock Station, and added some water to it.

I also had problems flattening and defining the road so, when we came across a row of traffic cones while no-one was looking, my husband reached out the driver's side door and grabbed one just as three cars came round the corner! The problem with things like traffic cones is that I  find it nearly impossible to just make up their unique proportion width to height. (Road signs, fence wire, droppers are all the same, so I have a huge library of photographs of all the things I can't drag into the studio or prop up outside it.) Then we visited some friends and found they had three of the damn things in the corner of their lounge.

** There are more notes on the Tar Truck in the Trucks Page