The Redwoods

This is the final painting in a series of four I've done of the botanical gardens in Santa Barbara, a place of true wonderment and inspiration to me. The previous three have been largely focused on the flowers, the meadow and the mountains of this inimitable place, but this painting is all about the giant redwoods. When I started my first painting here I had no idea that the trees in the centre of the scene were redwoods because they looked so small and regular in the distance, but when G pointed out that they were the fabled California redwoods and all we were seeing was the top of them and that out of sight they plunged hundreds of feet down to the valley below it just blew my mind! What an incredible joy it was to paint them!