time to make a start on the final paintings

I have decided to make 3 big paintings on wooden panels, these are 42 inches by 86 inches, 4 20 x 20 inch wooden panels and half a dozen small 10 x 10 inch wooden panels. These might not all be in the final selection for the exhibition but at least I will have some options to select from. Here are the first 2 of big ones showing an initial drawing/composition.

The idea is to represent the mining landscape, using the shapes of rock, stratification, soil, quartz,
gems and tunnelling as reference. I have been constantly back and forth with how to do this,
should it be a realistic representation or abstracted? or a mixture of both? How literal should it be, what is the story, the essence I want to convey? Finally I decided to go abstract! but maybe include a small element of realism by representing one of the gems found in the mine called Ramsbeckite, an indigo/turquoise gem.

The composition represents a landmass and will show layers below the surface describing shapes of rocks, tunneling and soil and organic matter. The view will be side on as if you are looking through layers like an archological dig, layers through time that are being revieled to us. The shape of the landmass is also the shape of one of the rocks I found, so its an overview of land and what is contained within it.

This is the first stage of painting for 2 of the big panels, laying down colour and thinking about how shapes fit together. I have added some of the collage paper that I discussed in my previous blog. This represents cutting/tunneling and also seams of quartz running through rock. Initially I am working on these as a dyptych but this might/probably will change! There is a third big panel but not started that yet. I don't think it will be a tryptych... but you never know at this stage, everything could change. There is also an obvious horizon indicative of landscape but I am unsure about including this at the moment.