I painted this oil painting commission recently of the sumptuous orange groves and the warm sunny landscape of the Lecrin valley, in southern Spain. I worked entirely on location, getting completely absorbed in the intense experience of constantly observing what was in front of me and applying paint to canvas, in an honest portrayal of what I saw. Ok the trees were not exactly blue. It’s a very long time since I have painted anything so large and at one point I felt like I had bitten off more than I could chew. I kept thinking to myself, “It’s so big!” The canvas is 195cm x 130cm and acted like a sail in the slightest breeze. At several points during the painting I had no idea how to describe what I saw, so I blocked in some appropriate colour and then painted in the darks and lights until that seemed to describe what I wanted. You can see the development of the whole piece in this video.