This painting follows on from the previous one in that I decided to develop the warmly lit areas and expand it to be the main focus of the picture for this one. Once I was on that track it quickly occurred to me that fire could be a good subject and from that I thought about fire temples which actually do exist in one of the oldest religions on earth, Zoroastianism (Parsi in India). This is however a fire temple on number 11 and very much a Fantasy image so apologies at this point to any Zoroastrians who may see this! Ahura Mazda incidentally is a kind of godhead in this religion and a name I have loved and wanted to use in a title for many years!
This painting proved to be very tricky firstly because I wanted the brightest points of the picture to be the canvas white itself so I had to plan in advance where they were going to be which slowed me down in drawing it up... and secondly it was far more difficult than I first realised to translate the lighting of the previous street market scene into this scenario and it took longer than it really should have to paint the fires around the temple. I guess that lighting is ideal for market scenes at night!
This might be the last painting that I can finish in time to take to IX in Reading PA later this month... maybe time for another small one...
Oil on linen 22" x 16".
There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.
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