New Year New Beginnings

Firstly Happy New Year to you all, I am going to make a real effort this year to update my blog every month :-)
So, all of December was spent in Chile with my family. We stayed near Santiago and also travelled across to 'Rapa Nui' - Easter Island. It was a 5 hour flight across the ocean, unbelievable.
It was the most magical place I ever visited (apart from San Atacama). If you do believe in what they call 'residential energies' within rocks etc, this is the place where you can really feel it. It was an unexplainable sensation, wandering through the moai on the volcanoes, nobody else around, just silence along with wind and rain. Amazing place sincerely. The above photograph was taken on Anakena Beach there, by my husband. Its a fantastic photograph, I think it looks like a Vettriano scene!

I collected many photographs as I intend to do a portrait study of a young girl I met there. She was a member of the classical Rapa Nui Ballet and posed for us in order for me to do a painting. I am also working on a piece of my Chilean niece so I have come away with lots of ideas.
This year I am also intending to follow the theme of the Tree of Life which has always featured strongly in my work. I love the endless possibilities of the tree, and have done since first reading 'The Magic Faraway Tree' by Enid Blyton many years ago. I have some exciting new ideas along this theme alongside a new concept of prints which I believe has never been done before.