On ile de la Reunion there is an old, long silent volcanic caldera called la montagne where many people live. These is also a winding road up the side of la Montagne that takes a stomach turning 10-12 minutes to ascend. At the bottom right of this painting I suggested the curve of the road... if you could be there, you would see this little road with tiny little cars on it. I was sitting in a little view point where visitors could park and look at the great view of St. Denis, the main city on the island. The wind was very strong at this moment, and the shadow from the rest of the mountain behind me, was starting to fall over St. Denis, if you look at the bottom half of the painting and squint your eyes you will see the shadow of the mountain.
There are a lot of elements of a painting that need to come together for success, including colour, technique, the idea, and most importantly, the composition. This painting is a good example of a classic "S" composition... forget for a second that you are looking at an island and an ocean, then look at the coast line, it forms an S shape going from top right to bottom left. This type of composition really allows the eye to move up and down and side to side. Controlling where the viewers eye will wander is the basis of good composition. This is also an example of how to 'suggest' detail....it looks like there is a city there, but when you examine it carefully there are no defined buildings or houses. The trick is to keep the detail level similar in the whole painting, if some things are really detailed then the viewer thinks everything should be detailed, but in this painting everything is a little fuzzy, so the viewer is more prepared to accept the 'suggestion' of a city.
Watercolour, 10x11" cold press August 2011
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