One of the elements of a painting that greatly increases the interest and narrative is the inclusion of animals. The scene I painted here started off as a simple coast scene but I new I would be adding something during the execution of the canvas. The thing that drew me instantly to the composition was the lovely contrast between the cool blue sea and the warm dry land. The thoughts that were going on in my mind was that the image should represent a period situation, and so the idea of including a shire horse was born. It can be very tempting to make the horse and cart too big in this situation, but sometime, as I hope you will agree with me, the composition benefited by just having the horse and cart as an incidental part of the final image.
Litho print, overall size 17" x 12½", image size 13" x 9½"
Signed limited edition of 500