This painting brought back so many pretty memories. Cheonggyecheon was once an old stream that people lived by, when looking back at old photos it almost looked like a Shanty town. With Koreas fast development after the Korean war a highway was built over the stream which was turned into sewage system. However after the development of the road, in the 90s there was a project to restore the stream, it was controversial as there were a lot of people against it because people around the area would lose their businesses. When it opened in 2005, it has slowly become a popular destination and has improved the ecosystem.

As the years have passed, the manmade stream developed and more greenery was planted bringing animal life to the area! This scene in particular was captured on a warm September day, people were just enjoying the last few moments of Summer and I saw a man resting underneath the tree. When I paint my Korean landscapes I don’t usually paint the people in them but I had to in this case, it completes the mood I felt.

The trickiest thing to paint were the steps, and showing how the sunlight was captured and reflected on the ground, I was playing around with white and yellow paint, even though it appeared white on the picture, yellow appeared suitable to capture the Summer glow. I had fun painting the stream and wanted to paint the local herons but I felt like it would be too much for the image and instead included the Koi.

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