Fine Art | Oil Painting | Australian Landscape Artist
This humble little board has come a long way from its hurried plein air beginnings out amongst the fire scarred trees and stony ground of the Bushmead Rifle Range. After the previous session, I leave it to dry. The end is in sight now with one more push.
I paint in the major tree trunks which gives me a tonal fulcrum to lever the contrasting high notes against.
For the sunlit leaves I turn the dial up to 11! I stretch my palette to its absolute physical limits then take it a little further beyond as I borrow some Divisionist and Pointillist techniques from the French Impressionists.
When painting landscape on location, I am surrounded by the sounds of nature – wind rustling the trees, cockatoos squawking overhead, crickets chirping – a constant orchestra of natural sounds provide the audio stimulant to my painting efforts.
But what about when working in the studio?
For me, sometimes silence is all that is required but more often than not, I need music.
It was a dull day, nothing much happening. Not that there wasn’t much light, quite the opposite. It was clear and bright but that’s not necessarily a good thing when you are looking for colour in an intimate landscape. I was in search of something challenging to paint in the bush near home but the light was too intense and nothing was really grabbing my interest.