View From A Cave

The first of what was to be a series of four images depicting different views from inside a large cavern. Copyright - 1986.

Watercolours, gouache and felt tip. 400mm x 310mm.

Sky, sea and cave walls done in watercolour. The foreground path, plant and snake in gouache. The shading was done using a black felt tip and thousands of dots! You've no idea how long that took; how much it made my fingers ache and how many felt tip pens I ruined by continually bashing their tip on the paper.

Composition wise this picture was all over the place being a mishmash of ideas taken from a variety of source.

The idea was to create four such 'views' so that each image could be hung on opposing walls of a room as if the the room was the cave which had four openings. The project was never completed mainly because at that time in my artistic career, my style, for what it was, kept changing. This can be seen in the second of the series, 'View From A Cave II'. The third and forth images were never started.

The idea of the path, which was a tribute to the great Roger Dean, was resurrected from the picture, 'Pathways'.