Always trying to paint something new and create a variety in my work I decided on painting a landscape on black paper to add to my black label collection.

I started by painting the tunnel walls and the moss growing up the side of the rocks. Next I added the twins, one in shadow the other in sunlight at the entrance / exit depending which way you walked.

Once I started painting the stones on the floor the painting was starting to looking like a night time scene under the glow of a full moon, which I rather liked. This looked like the twins were walking into a dark tunnel where in reality it was the opposite they were walking out of one.

This has definitely given me some ideas for future tunnel paintings and full moons.

I think in hindsight that I should have painted the outside of the tunnel first that way I could light up the inside of the tunnel and create depth more easily.

Next it was time to paint some of the ghost gums and background foliage. I think it’s also important to notice the details of fallen trees and a few at odd angles.

I just love how there are ferns hanging in shadow from the roof of the tunnel. I was going to add some bats here but wasn’t sure if I’d seen them in this tunnel or another one which I visited recently.

It’s at this stage that I realised that I haven’t painted a large group of ferns before. Painting things for the first time always worries me because you never know if it’s going to be easy or difficult. A cluster of ferns I’d place on the difficult side of the scale after this little experience.

What I discovered from painting the ferns is you start from the back and paint the darker ferns and the shadows. This gives you a base to work from and adds depth to your paintings.

I started adding more natural litter on the ground with fallen leaves and dead ferns, also some running water.

After you have a good base you can then start adding ferns in sunlight and individual leaves.

At this stage I realised that the inside of the tunnel was looking a little dark and more light was needed on the rocks and moss further up the walls.

Everything was just about finished and looking pretty good, now I just needed to add the glow worms.

In reality the glow worms were much deeper into the tunnel where it was darker, but for the sake of an interesting painting I placed them closer to the entrance.

Last of all to make it a little more personal for the owner of this painting I added her initials. Then had a total blonde moment and could remember her name because I had her initials back to front.

Once I had them painted in the correct order I double checked to see if I had put my dinner in the microwave and not back in the fridge as it was getting late. The joys of getting old…

SR in the middle of the painting.