Approx. 50.5 cm (w) x 66 cm (h), oil paints on linen canvas.

Produced entirely on-site within Cottesloe Avenue, at West Beach.

This olive tree with the various lines of rhythm within its foliage, standing on sloping ground , felt quite poetic. I painted this using a palette of a small number of mixed colours, and looked at using lines to express a lot of the structure within the scene.

This is actually a second version of the same painting, carried out about a week after finishing the first version (shown below). I had been looking at the first version for a few days, and thought that I could improve on that first result. I felt that the first image was quite grey. I wasn’t getting much expression from the colouring, or overall tonal structure. With this second version, I believe I’ve increased the impact of colour and tone, and ‘tightened’ the main shapes within the composition.

The result feels much stronger than the first version. I was pleased with the progress I saw between these two versions.