'Breathe', 'Blu-Ray' and 'Gravity'...New Paintings March/April 2015

2015 seems to be morphing into the year of 'the water'. 6 of my paintings so far this year (and its only April!) have water as an element. Our lifestyle here in Perth, Western Australia is all about the great outdoors; our magnificent coastline; our turquoise waters; our white sandy beaches. With looooong, hot, summers and mild, short winters, we spend a lot of time getting wet. Add in the fact that our family is blessed with access to a boat, a boat big enough to be classed as a floating caravan and fast enough to get us to Rottnest Island (a little leisure oasis just off our coast) in just 40 minutes. Throw in a purchase of a cheap and cheerful Olympus Tough Underwater camera and I have been in underwater photo shoot heaven this summer. Easter had us enjoying 5 days at Rottnest, with my brother and his family joining us for some fun and mayhem. Perth put on its best autumnal weather...with enough sunshine to have us living in our bathers for a last blast of summer. My goodness I pushed the whole family to the limits of their patience...I had them in the water, ducking and diving like a team of synchronised swimmers training for the Olympics. Even when we were all turning hypothermic, I kept nagging 'another 5 minutes'...over and over again! Poor family. Thank you. Especially to my poor nieces who were terrified of the giant stingrays that floated underneath us every now and then whilst I was trying for that ultimate shot!! I now have a winters worth of reference photos to continue on with...some of them totally crazy happy snaps and very unpaintable but many, many of them are perfect to turn into oil paintings. Even if I ended up having to use insane bribery to get the peeps to cooperate. Think I may need to hire models on going... Mia x