Postcard No 49: Life by the River
Driving home from the vet’s I noticed the trunks of the Autumn Field were looking particularly lovely in the late sunshine. It’s officially part of the Fleurty’s Point Holiday Cottage property but I’ve started renaming places along the river since we moved here. This one gets Autuumn Field because it has a planting of beautiful deciduous trees that have an amazing blaze of colour in autumn.
Right now though it’s the bare tree trunks that are looking amazing. Staright and tall with silvery grey bark and lots of twisting branches and twigs reaching for the sky.
Below them the field is bursting with golden daffodils.
I may have planted them a little closer together than reality!
This is the field where the River Geese gang often hang out. They’re enjoying foraging in the grass amongst the daffodils lately, although I didn’t catch them in this postcard.
I simply dabbed in dots of a warm and cool yellow for the daffodils without any attempt to make a realistic shape. I’ve told you they’re daffodils, they’re yellow and it’s spring so that’s enough detail!
I painted in the branches but then added a little fineliner to accentuate the twigginess .
The paper colour adds some background warmth which is one of the reasons I chose this particular sketchbook for my postacards.
I simplified the background into colour bands representing sky, hills and river. I quite like how the horizontal bands play against the vertical trees.
Adding, subtracing and simplifying are all great tools.
It really feels like an early Spring with snowdrops and daffodils filling the paddocks and gardens and golden wattle everywhere so expect some more Spring postcards coming up.
Lindy Whitton Studio 
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