Midgard

Midgard is the realm of Man in Norse mythology which JRR Tolkein called Middle Earth in his books, the towering mountains in the distance could be Asgard, realm of the Gods. The painting is based on the landscape of the Lofoten Islands in Norway which I thought would be appropriate to the Norse mythology theme and has influences of Albert Bierstadt, the Hudson River School and Eugen Bracht running through the picture. This is the first what I would call Fantasy Landscape I have painted in 15 years and is based around a yellow/violet complementary colour axis in which I have tried to give it a strong composition by playing with values and keeping the lightest area of the painting in the top right corner. There is a step-by-step progress through the painting on preceding posts of this blog and is another picture that I will consider taking to Illuxcon in September. 39 1/2" x 15 3/4" oil on canvas.