The lure of the links

Picture the scene: it is late on a summer evening over the vacated links of Royal Liverpool Golf Club. The shadows begin to lengthen under the June sun. You have set out alone with a half set - just a few holes. A great breeze greets you as you step up to the back tee at the tenth. Intoxicating whiffs of salty, pungent, penetrating air, and maybe the sudden butterscotch scent of gorse in bloom. The skylarks have ceased their song and the only sound is the gusting wind and the distant roar of the surf in the Irish Sea. You feel "the sense of freedom in this great expanse, the exhilaration, the vastness, the buoyancy, the exaltation*". 
The long green fairway stretches out before you. Oh what a joy to be alive!
This is my latest golf painting. I am grateful to local member Sam Cooper for giving me permission to use as a source image his superb drone photography.
* From "The Mystery of Golf", Arnold Haultain.

Far and Sure, oil on canvas, 91 x 114 cms

Drone and overhead footage has created new perspectives on old vistas. The Californian based painter Sandra Mendelsohn Rubin explores these birds` eye views to great effect with her beautiful paintings. These also inspired me to try an alternative point of view.

SM Rubin

SM Rubin

SM Rubin

So, short of canvases here in Tokyo in lockdown and finding a large old unwanted painting it was time to stretch a new canvas on the old frame and begin a new golf painting.

Sam`s original image ended just above the tenth green and the size of the canvas warranted more holes, so I added in the famous `Alps` short eleventh and, on the horizon line, the houses at Red Rocks at the end of Stanley Road. (Hilbre island does not get a look-in!).
I found it challenging to conjure up a sense of three dimensions. The overhead perspective `squashes` the terrain and you need to use subtle shifts of tone and colour and shadow to bring it to life. 

Shadows and green glazes

Mower lines on `Punchbowl` green

I hope you like the end result. Next up to paint will probably be the wonderful new short 15th hole designed by Martin Ebert (who has just done a fabulous renovation www.mackenzieandebert.co.uk/Hirono of Japan`s famous Hirono Golf Club). 
You can see more of my golf art www.sjdalby.com/golf.html or if you are interested in commissioning your own original piece of golf art www.sjdalby.com/golf-commissions.html by clicking on these links. I also have one or two limited edition prints available of RLGC message me for details.
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2 iron..or 16 Filbert?