It’s strange how things develop and change when you’re playing with ideas for a painting. I’ve been wondering for a while how I’d paint Bilbo meeting Gandalf for the first time at Bag End, so I sat down with a couple of pencils and a large sketch book and pondered. Nothing came to me, I stared at a blank piece of paper and wondered if it was like they say about carving, the piece is already there you just have to chip away the waste. Well, I tried looking at the paper in different light, from different angles, with my eyes half closed, nothing helped. So, I drew a line, intent on making a mark on the page, the line became a very rough sketch of the gate which led to some background hills…. Now all I have to do is work out what I want to change before I think about painting it 😉
