This is my last post for a little while as I've an overseas visitor staying and will be socially preoccupied. We are also all going to Malaysia for a fortnight's vacation, taking advantage of the school holidays.
For the last few weeks I've been working on another painting of autumn leaves. Taking a cue from the old master Vincent, I decided to paint plane trees. There was an avenue of plane trees in Milthorpe that was very pretty but when I was there the leaves were still green. It's not difficult to find plane trees in Sydney; our townplanners have obvious Parisian inclinations. (I've noticed that we don't make topiaries out of our plane trees quite like the French do.)
So this painting is a sort of hybrid : I used the country background and modelled the leaves on a Sydney avenue.
To lend it further interest, I traced the shadows on the road. Norma has been on my case to 'free up' my strokes and this painting relies on palette knife techniques. I doubt I will ever get to the free strokes of Ada in Milthorpe as I'm trained as an architect... Drawing buildings isn't the same as painting, the detail counts! But I've had fun slapping on the paint here.
