Expressive Urbanscape

This week's painting is still in the orange red and blue palette but it's cooler and I've decided that it's hopeless to paint urbanscapes with an eye to accuracy. Instead I let rip - treating the painting like a drawing.


This is a view of Castlereagh St in Sydney. The original building on the right is an eyesore. It's a car park with the trains running overhead. But doesn't it look a treat in my painting?

Also the liberation I now enjoy with the colours - whoever has seen a sienna brown road?

Landscape from plane

On a recent work trip to Canberra, I flew over some mountains - possibly the southern highlands. The mist was rising from the valleys and it looked remarkable.


I thought to paint it but using an orange and blue palette. The real thing was covered thickly with eucalyptus forests and was verdant green but as I've a trip to Kakadu coming up I wanted to try a palette more like the red centre. Ochre guided me away from my original extremely complementary colour scheme to this subtler scheme.

Lord Howe lagoon

In March I made a trip to Lord Howe Island accompanying my friend Coralie who spent part of her early childhood there. Plenty of sketches were made and the scenery was of paradise but as for painting, not one resulted. Until now....


This is a diptych of the lagoon from somewhere between old settlement and the jetty. The corals are delightful and I spent a few hours snorkelling. It truly is a gorgeous place. Also many locals came to talk to us after they found out that Coralie's dad was the famous and well liked radio operator during the war years.