Painting Outdoors
An artist's journey
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Friday, May 10, 2013
Outback Painting Trip in May 2009
Well protected by fly net |
Kit: board, good paper, pen and brushes and twigs, water, watercolour paints
Wow...what
a lot I learned from fellow artists on this trip.
|
Besides
using my basic watercolours, I used charcoal from the fire as well as twigs to
scratch into the painted surface.

I did 6-8 paintings each day over 10 days so
ended up with lots of little works which I bound into 2 booklets using
cardboard and string. I really felt like I wanted to use the materials of the
environment.
Grass scratched into paint using twigs, giving an accidental effect you could never get with a brush. |
The
scenery on day 1 was too overwhelming to paint...I tore up my first
attempts...so then I concentrated on a detailed observation and painting of an
arrangement of interesting stones, leaves and sticks.
From that I had a better
idea of the colours around me and alternated between detailed paintings and
bigger views.
It was very helpful to use my little fridge magnet frame, not only as a viewfinder but also to draw a frame using the inside rectangle to frame my picture. This also left me a margin which I used to try out colours before using them in the picture.
.
Detail showing final exhibition, laid out on a tarp in true outback style! Cheese, wine and nibblies were mandatory! |
The other surprise was to see how secretive some artists were, as I had no idea of their work till the last day.
The whole point of a trip like this is surely to learn from each other as the work progresses! Well that’s what I did anyway.
This was quite a careful and detailed work, trying to get the distances correct. |
Loved the white trunks, so painted those against a dark background. Left out the foliage. |
The other interesting thing I noticed about my work was that I loved/was attracted to water. Water was very scarce out there in Ellery Gorge and patches of water/soaks/areas of bulrushes seemed to figure in most of my paintings.
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