Eight Mile Creek

The nearly dry Eight Mile Creek in the Leichardt Range near Ravenswood, North Queensland. It was a stinking hot day! My assistant, Rupert and I left camp and walked creeks and gorges for an hour or so looking for a good painting sight. The water we were carrying was running out.

Rupert was getting thirsty and I had to find him something to drink other than my bottle of sports aid stuff. I’d been through here a month or so before and there was trapped water everywhere then but now it had been a long time since rain and the water seemed to be all gone.

Eventually we came across a rock pool that hadn’t evaporated. Rupert was ecstatic! He swam and played and generally ran around like a mad thing. I was tempted to join him but set up and painted instead. This was a great subject and I didn’t want to leave the water pool. The rock formations were spectacular and it was something like this I’d been looking for anyway.

Eventually, Rupert got bored with the water and decided to dig in the shade beside me and spray sand all over my painting gear. I cleaned that up. At some stage the painting fell off the easel! I managed to catch it but got covered in paint doing so. I fixed that up too and clipped the board back on securely like I should have done to start with. Things weren’t going easily!

After about an hour I called it quits. It was just too hot. We were glad to get back to camp and rest in the shade with a cold drink! The painting was finished in the studio later and now it’s a great little record of an adventurous day for Rupert and me. You can see a picture of the creek site with my easel and the painting underway on Instagram.