Interior of my art school

Last week it was rainy and cold - brrrr and so we stayed indoors and painted our art school.


It is an old warehouse with lovely light coming from the high windows, lots is exposed beams and pipes. Ochre our tutor said that she had not seen anyone get a good picture from the front studio so I rose to the challenge and painted this.



I also had a chance to give my urbanscape the 'Giacometti' treatment and it's actually looking pretty spiffy.

Drawing with paint

Back to art school and today we learn of the Swiss/ Italian artist Giacometti. Giacometti was famous as a sculptor. But he also painted or rather drew with a paint brush. He would go over the lines many times in different colours. This gave his works an expressive effect.


So today we had a still life set up and had to draw it with paint brush. This is my take on it.

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.

Still life with warm palette

In a bid to find time for myself I went to Ochre Lawson's painting class. Life gets too busy and unfortunately art is the first casualty.


Ochre's class is to paint using non-representative palettes - colours that are not what you see. I love the idea but the few times I've attempted this I've met with mixed results.
Today's palette is warm reds, oranges and yellows. I'm quite pleased with the pumpkin - does it not look delectable?
I will try to find more time for art as (a) I'm happier after art (b) surely there's more to life than working and keeping house????

Boats

After a long time away from my easel I bought a set of paints for travelling. A trip to Lord Howe was planned and I needed to prepare. To test the palette I copied this boat scene from a book. And isn't it a great little picture? The colours and vibrant movement just catches the eye.



As for Lord Howe it was spectacular but I didn't paint as much - too busy enjoying the pristine waters and marine life. I did some sketches and now back at the studio have started a diptych. I will post this when I'm satisfied.... which hopefully will not be too long a wait