Today I've been painting hard and getting some small paintings finished, as they've been selling well.  I decided whilst painting, and finding myself, as usual, getting a bit fiddly, that I'd like to get onto a nice big abstracts and remembered some photos I took back in 2005 when I was staying in a tiny cottage in Tinopai, on the west coast of Northland in New Zealand.  I was there on my own (with the exception of a friendly rooster!), so I spent most of time either painting or wandering around taking photos. The cottage was right next to the beach, which was very tidal, and it was amazing to see the colours and patterns created in the sand when the tide went out.  There was also an area along on the point with the most amazing coloured and patterned rocks - a large painting I did from some of them is above with the original photo next to it. Yes, I do tend to accentuate colours!

Unfortunately when I tried to copy these photos from my CD when last in Sydney, the files seemed to be corrupt, so it I was estatic when I had a brainwave after a dig around online and actually found there were still some of these images on the Primrose Park Photography (PBase) website in Sydney http://www.pbase.com/primrose_park_ph/jackie_sherwood.

What's interesting though, is how obvious it is when looking at these photos, just how much one actually 'sees'  when staying in one remote spot without all the usual distractions. Something I should bear in mind when we're travelling around and I'm trying to photograph every single thing I find interesting. Hopefully the sketching will help see the small stuff though!