Sunlight Frog

	SUNLIGHT AND SHADOWS, 1994 Limited edition print publication date: 1994 Edition size: 850 copies Published price: £26 Maximum known secondary market price reached: £375 Gary says: "I shared a room with this little creature at Hato Piñero, Venezuela during my second visit in 1993. He/she, I didn’t look that close, was the perfect model for this and my two other Tree Frog drawings. Sunlight and Shadows is just my favourite composition of the three. ”I don’t know initially who was more shocked, but one day I jumped into the shower only to have ‘something’ lunge out at me from behind the shower curtain. It landed on my shoulder with a plop, followed by a noise (scream, from me). Imagine the scene from Psycho. Unlike that film, we both survived to face another day. “My travel companion in Venezuela, friend and fantastic artist Helen Cowcher definitely picked the short straw when it came to roommates on that trip though. She shared, for the briefest of times, with a scorpion. It was appropriately removed by me in a glass and taken somewhere far, far away, unharmed; physically at least. I didn’t think to photograph the scorpion that day, but should have done as I’d rather like to draw one. Now how do you make that creature appealing enough for people to want to hang on their wall? “Sunlight and Shadows was drawn from a mixture of photos that I especially took with this drawing in mind. Some of the frog posing on the young palm tree, a couple of sunlight hitting the trunk after filtering through palm fronds above. Then a few more of various palm trunks displaying lovely ring patterns. I was very pleased with the hot atmosphere that resulted in my drawing. “When people say to me my drawings look just like photographs, I know it’s meant as a compliment and I do take it in the spirit intended. The fact is though I use photos as a tool to try and improve on scenes I’ve witnessed and to create the best composition I can from these references mixed to some extent, with my imagination. Sunlight and Shadows is a great example of that. “In the very early days of my career, I felt happy if my drawings fairly much matched the photos I was working from. Nowadays, I feel happiest when they don’t match the photos but mirror the vision in my head. The early 1980’s were a great training ground and made me really look deeply at my subject matter and helped me work out what I wished to achieve with my art." PREVIOUS NEXT

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