South coast

Summer is here although it alternately gets wet and chilly. I'm trying to get as much ocean swimming in as possible - between the rain and resulting pollution I'm not having much luck!


If I can't swim I can paint the beach. This one is in the south coast - where the beaches are both rocky and sandy. It's a magical part of the world.

Gordon's bay

Our Sydney coast is really very special with the sandstone cliffs awashed by the sea. Gordon's Bay is between Coogee and Clovelly - part of the great Bondi walk.


Here I have used palette knife techniques to render the cliff and waves. There's something exhilarating about standing on the edge looking at the pounding surf.

Excursion to Jervis Bay

After a longish hiatus I enrolled myself in a plein air workshop last weekend. It was run by the charming Alison Chiam, of Malaysian Chinese/ Scottish heritage. The workshop was held at Jervis Bay, about 2.5 hours away from Sydney.

The afternoon we left a thunderstorm with hail came down with great effect. The trip took us nearly 4 hours! The next day the weather was dismal - showers and a brisk wind made it rather wintry. Being a wuss I assumed that the workshop would be relocated to an indoor venue. Well, it wasn't and we ended up stuck mostly in a shelter at Picnic Point.




Rowen Matthews the art tutor is an academic and practising painter. His message is to paint expressively - in other words convey the feeling of the place. I'm sure he is right, at some level I know that paintings of places that I've loved always sold first. Being outside, despite the elements really helps. If only plein air weren't so uncomfortable. One is either too hot or too cold. The less equipment you bring the less you can achieve. The balance is a challenge. Despite the conditions I was happy with my first painting - it's a sandbank across the creek. I had to paint peeking out from the cracks of the shelter....



The next day the weather cleared. Hurray! The time we went to Greenfields Beach. I was encouraged to try palette knife painting as a quick way to get an impression down. These are small boards but perfect for field work.


This last one was of another creek. I was struck by the tea stained rocks in the creek. One can only see this in the shadows - the water reflected the sky perfectly in other places. I'm glad to have attended this workshop as it has now inspired me to get out and paint. I've finally bought a tube of retardant which I will be thankful for outside of rainy days.

Blue mountains

Our recent holiday at the Blue Mountains has inspired this painting of our bushwalk. It was morning and the light was beautiful- ideal time for a walk to appreciate the scenery.


Meantime I've started T2 watercolour with Susie. We did a still life and I introduced this wonderful colour called paynes grey. Naughty of me but its so gorgeous and dark!






For the gumnuts I used gouache white as it was impossible to get the texture otherwise.

Small painting

A vacation at the quiet end of the Blue Mountains inspired me to paint. We stayed at a huge luxurious house with views and Miss 11 fed the neighbour's horse with apples.


Bilpin and its surroundings are apple orchard country. We didn't pick any although we enjoyed an apple pie and ate lots of fresh apples.

Valleys and mesas

Having painted one version of the Blue Mountains in a hurry I decided to reproduce it but in a larger and longer format.


Every time I go up the mountains, I am again reminded of its grand scale. It really is a series of mesas and valleys, each one further away wreathed in a blue mist. It's a lush place, despite the awful fires ravaging now and again.

People in landscape

On a stinker of a day I attended a workshop by Kerrie Lester a well known expressive painter.


It was quite fabulous despite the heat. The main advice I took home was to work the entire painting and no outlines etc. People should be incorporated in the picture from the start and not plopped in as an afterthought. Also being expressive means to interpret what you feel from the scene. The freedom to actually paint gesturally - I always thought that my life drawing was best when it was gestural. No need for fine detail- leave it to the viewer to fill in the dots.

The added bonus is that it's finished so quickly- I actually did two and gave myself an early mark to recover from the heat.

Reflections from the dam

This is the last painting started last week at the residential art school. This one I took at the CSU campus itself on one of my early morning walks (that was the only time of day the temperature was cool enough for a walk).



It's of the reflection of eucalyptus trees on the dam. Painted on canvas for portability. Of course it means I have to frame but I guess if it doesn't sell I can pop other paintings in at a later stage.

Day 3 Bathurst

Helen showed us her watercolours and truly she is an amazing water colourist. I think it's really her medium so it beats me why she is teaching acrylics. Unanimous decision today to paint boats but the groans and moans indicates the difficulty. For a change I am following the pack.


My boats are relatively scatty but I don't care. More interested in the water effect than the boats. Also completed a sea scape. These A3 paper are so simple to fill in.


I believe these rocks are on the south coast but can't be 100% sure.

Day 2 of residential art

After months of neglect, I'm posting every day! While I was silent before I was not totally quiet on the art front. Several pieces were in progress and subsequently completed in time for the exhibition at Bondi Pavilion in March 2014. When I get home I shall post photos of these.

Meantime in class Helen decided to demo poppies. I must say that this subject filled me with fear and loathing. The way she paints flowers is similar to those prints sold at $2 shops and Ikea. She's much better if course but my efforts will look exactly like it. I painted this cottage that falling down next to Currawong. Roger took the photo with his new camera at sunset and it looks a treat.

Second take on the rock pool at Little Bay

A few years ago I painted the rock pool at Little Bay. Recently thought I'd give it another go. The pool is man made, created from blocks of sandstone and rocks from the vicinity. It was intended as a shallow bath for the nurses who used to work at the Prince Henry Hospital (now a million dollar housing estate).



It's an idyllic spot, attracting crowds on hot summer days. Whenever I go, I remember why I choose to live in this glorious city.

The last eucalyptus

Last year on a vacation to Mudgee, we went for an 8 km walk through a pine forest to get to some rocks and a view. It took an hour to get there and another to get back. The pine forest dominated but here and there the remnants of a eucalyptus bushland was visible. This painting was inspired by the contrast.

More Moreton bay figs

I've been invited to exhibit with the Inner West Art Group at Gallery NTK Croydon on the 8 Dec. As a consequence I've been busily painting.


This diptych was inspired by the impressionists who frequently painted figures with their backs to the light. The deep shadows are actually not conducive to the modern art of photography. But the eye does not suffer from the same problem!

Moreton Bay Figs are some of my favourite trees. Their trunks have this human limb like quality. And they are such magnificent trees, casting deep shade on hot summer days.

Creek walk

With my exhibition date looming (7 Sep) and my intention to title it "from the desert to the sea", I realised with a jolt that I only have 3 desertscapes completed. This led to a panic attack and the commencement of a fourth painting.


This one was inspired by a walk we did at the base of King's Canyon. It is a gentle walk, leading to a sheer rock escarpment. At that point, braver and fitter souls could venture up a million steps to the top of the table. This walk went through very lush landscape, surprisingly thick in parts, due to the phenomenal rainfall enjoyed last year. The creek was dry but the eucalypts were plentiful, their smooth white trunks contrasting with the red earth.

Not the way home: 13 artist paint the desert

Last Saturday we made it to the SH Erwin gallery at Observatory Hill for the exhibition titled "Not the way home: 13 artist paint the desert". As regular readers may know, I have been struggling with desertscapes ever since my brief trip to Uluru last Oct. I thought that perhaps I could get some ideas from the exhibition. Alas, the desert in the subject was quite different from that of Central
Australia. 13 artists were taken to Broken Hill for 2 weeks and asked to make a body of work in response.
Broken Hill may be desert but it's not as arid so there is quite a lot of vegetation. In fact it looks a lot like my friends' farm in Young. The colours are grey green and brown not vivid reds and ochres.

Steve Lopes painted various industrial junk discarded to rust slowly. He included figures in these pictures but they appear quite awkward, some bang right in the centre of a picture, in an unharmonious composition.

My favourite was Bonfire by Euan Macleod. It centred around a bonfire in the desert at twilight or sunrise. The shadows are long and the figures are warming themselves. The fire looked really warm and inviting. I also liked the sun hitting the hills behind.

Guy Warren painted a beauty in Forgotten Singers, Forgotten Songs 2. This is an abstract but the colours are great. The blue and orange zinged.

It was quite a good collection, and even included a ceramic sculptor Merran Esson. Merran's work reflected corrugated iron structures, she even used copper glaze for that green tinge of oxidized copper.

Desertscapes again

My artist friend Catherine generously gave me a few tips on painting deserts. This is what she said "...it is the density of the dark shadows that define the reds - think abstract shapes for the shadows. I think you've got alizarin crimson and pthalo blue in the shadows - more intensity." With her advice in mind, I decided to have another go at the King's Canyon painting. Here is what it looked like before I started experimenting.


It was fine but lacking in impact. Not memorable as the desert is in reality. I re-coloured the rocks to pure pigment and resisted adding white. That was quite a discipline for me! I added pthalo blue to the shadows which immediately darkened them.


And here is the result after. As Catherine said, it packs more of a punch. It captures more of the harshness and vitality of the desert.

Kings canyon

For weeks now I've been struggling with desertscapes... The colours in the desert are brilliant and most cameras cannot convey the shades of orange, ochre and yellow. But I wanted to put on paper what I saw, not what my camera captured.


Acrylic paints also have their limitations- the bright colours are usually transparent and opacity is obtained with the addition of white. However white dulls the colour and hence back to square one. In this desertscape of King's Canyon, I decided to work on paper so that I can put pastels and pure pigment on top. It's done with two pieces of paper so that it illustrates the vastness of this ancient land.

Colours of the desert

In an attempt to get the palette right for desertscapes, I painted some rocks and then used soft pastels to highlight them.


Incredible as it looks, these are the colours of central Australia. I've struggled to capture the desert and now feel that pastels are probably the best medium.

Banana coast revisited

After some fiddling I finished my acrylic version of the banana coast. It's a view that I love, combining the rural views with the Pacific Ocean.

Coffs Harbour trip

After a frenetic end to the year, we packed the car and made the 6+ hour journey to Coffs Harbour to spend Christmas with our sister Tess and her family. We stayed at a beach house at Moonee Beach and it was a fab location. Lulled by the sea breezes and frangipani fragrance, I relaxed sufficiently to sketch. This is the sketch I made of Moonee beach.


Coffs is tourist mad at this time of year but we avoided the town. Tess lives in Central Bucca which is on the plateau of the range. To get there, we have to drive up these slopes planted with banana and avocado crops. It's very scenic. Then we get to Bruxner Park which is a gum forest, straight and tall. Snakes frequently bask themselves on the road. Finally we get to farm land and it's very lush this year after all the rainfall it received. This next sketch is of the banana coast.