Kite Caught In Tree

Once I was walking in Todmorden park when I could hear a young lad crying. He was looking up at a kite got caught in a tree. His angry dad was reprimanding him for letting the kite got near the trees. The dad was livid and the poor lad was probably more upset about this than the kite. A man passing by me said "You shouldn't have kids if you're going to treat them like that." The tree was tall and the lowest branches were beyond the reach of a single ladder (a triple would do it.) I thought I'd paint this scene and here is the result.

As usual I drafted things out in pencil then filled in the areas with acrylic paint. Mmm....looked reasonable enough to continue and not obliterate with another painting. To add depth I dotted in some autumn leaves on the grass. I was making this up as I went along and thought I'd keep things loose and not make it more arduous than it needed to be.

I can't remember when I started going over the whole thing in oil paints (it's probably one third acrylic paint.) Colours were few and I kept an autumnal feel to it. The lad who was crying is looking up forlornly at the kite. As he's reaching up a bit I thought his coat would have ridden up his torso a little. I put on a Roxy Music concert and hoped it would propel me along. Painting with distractions in the background always helps. Soon it was finished - or was it. After a shower one day I was drying myself when I glanced at the canvas. I thought it would benefit from some shadows and once dry I mixed a little brown paint.

A kite is not a parallelogram. The opposite sides in a parallelogram are parallel but in a kite there are no parallel sites. Kites are usually rhombus shape. Kite flying was banned in Japan in 1760 due to the large number of people who would fly kites instead of going to work. The Normans used kites to send signals during their invasion of England during the Battle of Hastings. While painting this canvas I watched a Clint Eastwood film. I have never seen him flying a kite in any of his films. In an annual festival in India six people died when their throats were slit by kite strings.

No kites stuck here...