Green Woodpecker

People often ask me how long it takes me to paint a picture, from start to finish, and I find it a difficult question to answer. This painting, for instance, began life 18 years ago when I took a really good photograph of a woodpecker.
Then, about seven years ago I took a photograph of a stump of silver birch.
But it wasn't until just last week when I was thinking about green woodpeckers that I suddenly had the idea to put the green woodpecker onto the silver birch stump.
And once I had formed the idea for my composition I was keen to get painting.
I'm now working day and night to get it finished in time for my exhibition which opens on November 13th!