The Ramparts of Al Kazaar

The fortress city of Al Kazaar has sat on the rock outcrop in the burning desert of Khalifa for centuries. Once within a fertile land on the edge of the desert the inhabitants have watched the encroaching dunes move nearer and nearer over time until now they push against the very foundations of the city, forcing them to abandon the access through the gate at the base of the city. A passing storm has cleared the sultry air for a while in the late afternoon leaving pools of water between the dunes that will soon disappear into the arid sands of the Khalifa. They will endure.
Another of my fantasy landscapes/cityscapes with the emphasis on the sky, this one is set in the desert which is a nice change from the last painting "Agharta" which was set in the frigid mountains of Tibet.
The painting is based around a red/orange - blue/green complementary axis, the pools of water reflecting some of the sky colours into the bottom of the painting so that it links the sky to the land. In my landscapes I always try to avoid verticals and horizontals in favour of diagonals which impart more movement into the composition. This composition is unusual in that the lightest part of the picture sits dead in the middle so I have offset that by making sure that the rest of the painting is made up of uneven areas and uneven placings of the land and clouds etc.
This will probably be the last of the large-ish paintings that I am taking to IX next month, I might have time for another but may well try and paint a couple of small ones in the time that I have left.
Oil on linen 30" x 20".
There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.