My plan was to use these as a backdrop to the icebergs, which normally you simply would not see with a cityscape backdrop. But the polar ice is meting and the sea levels are rising and that is what I wanted to portray, albeit in a somewhat exaggerated style. Originally, my idea was to show not only the very small amount of iceberg that you actually see, but also the nine-tenths that you don’t see beneath the surface (see sketch above). Gradually I developed the picture and ditched this idea. I decided to stick with the curvy skyscrapers and just the above-surface icebergs.

Icebergs provide a great opportunity to paint some fabulous blues and greens; the older the ice, the deeper the blue. And those colours will make a great contrast to the purply-reds that I planned for the buildings.

Finished the basic sketch and coloured it in with crayons, just to give me an idea of what it would look like in the finished version.

I quite liked this as a coloured drawing - but as a painting it would be too anodyne. I need much more dramatic lighting, so I need to play around with light a lot more.
In the end, I decided to leave it as a drawing because I quite like the theme. Once it was finished, I framed it in a frame I had used for an earlier drawing. I haven’t given up on the idea of a painting on this subject, though. I just need a new approach. With some really dramatic lighting, it could make a quite stunning - and powerful picture - if it all works out.

I called the drawing “Too Late”. I like it. It has a certain charm as well as a ‘message’. You can see the painting in my galler at www.samhallart.com and my blogs at www.samhallart.blogspot.com  Stuck a price tag of £125 ($250) on it and uploaded it to the website. Tomorrow, I will sit down and figure out how to do the actual painting.