Fiona Long Art

There are two reasons that I call this painting New Forest Elephants. The first is that when my dad was a boy the family had a French exchange student over to stay with them for a while. They decided to take the French boy for a drive to show him the area. The New Forest is famous for it's ponies that wander around virtually wild. So, as they drove around they kept pointing to the ponies saying "New Forest pony" and then they would see a cow and say "New Forest cow" etc, etc. After a while to their great surprise they saw a man who must have been from a travelling circus, walking along the road with a large African elephant! The French boy turned around pointing at it rather nonchalantly and said "New Forest elephant.

The other reason for the title is that in the art group that I used to attend in the village, there was a running joke that all you had to do to sell a painting was to put a New Forest pony in it. There was a lady who had tried to sell some paintings and had failed to do so for years. She was moving house and wanted to get rid of them so she put New Forest somewhere in the title of all the paintings and without changing the paintings in any way or the price, they all sold on the first day of the exhibition! I find this hilarious so I thought I'd take the pxxx a little and put New Forest in the title of something where it really doesn't make sense (unless there's a travelling circus in town)!!

I'm thinking of adding some highlights to the eyes even though they weren't actually there in the image I was working on. What do you think?
Oil on canvas
2005
www.fionalongart.co.uk