Finished Ron

Ron's Landscape: 60 x 90 cm Oil on Linen

All done! and just in time really, as it needs to get on its Greyhound bus to go to Darwin next saturday, and of course needs to dry before then so it doesn't stick to the packaging.

So this is what 6 hours 'finishing off' looks like . . . would have finished in about half that time if I hadn't started fiddling around with the main eye, moved it up, moved it back etc. I also decided to put the paint marks on his neck that perhaps look like my mess and not Ron's, but drew the line at the splotch of yellow he had on his beard, as it just looked odd.

Off to see if I can finish the kid with the icy pole (just some face work to do, re highlights and tonal stuff), as the next deadline, the Peta Appleyard Gallery group exhib is fast approaching.

Nearly Finished, Ron

Had a couple of big days at the easel last weekend and got through the 'I've completely messed this up' phase with my 'Ron's Landscape' portrait of Ron for this year's Portrait of a Senior Territorian Award. Even nearly missed the plein air session on Sunday afternoon out at Simpson's Gap, but managed to get there for the last hour of light, and the Sav Blanc afterwards of course. Though poor Ron had the disconcerting experience of sitting chatting over a glass of wine with me peering rather intently at certain features of the right side of his head ('umm the ear's more dented than I'd thought and that crease alongside his mouth is really quite prominent . . . ') Luckily he paints portraits too, so was as comfortable about my distractedness as one could be. Just leaving it now for this week, having a look at it on saturday to do any final plays with highlights and tonal contrasts and then the delights of signing it. There's 3 of the Studio 12 artists entering this year (Ron and Iain Campbell) plus a couple of other artists I know from town; so it'll be a good showing from the centre up in Darwin this year. Now if I can only organise some workshop the department need to send me to up there during the exhibition . . .

ready for the changeover

Finally put the finishing touches to a couple of landscapes that can go into Studio 12 on the next changeover day (10 days away). The one above is Ormiston, the one below Swansea Bay (dim and distant past) from a walk I took visiting Chris many years ago.


This one's nearly done

And here's the completed window installation . . . with the glimpse of the S12 logo (bottom right) that inspired it . . .

There was even more . . .

Yup, forgot what I've just spent today working on . . . it's quite big and must first two camel portrait (these chaps are from Pyndan Camel Farm, just down the road, as Frontier Camel Farm has closed)




And these ones too . . . the same girl from the portait before . . .

Lots on the Go . . .

. . . various things coming up, apart from the Senior Territorian, just to keep me locked in the studio. Studio 12 are having a group exhibiton in a commercial gallery, so I'm trying to finish some new work for that. Pressure's on a bit too, as they're producing a proper catalogue and contacting their city gallery counterparts, so I want to have stuff I'm really pleased with for this . . .

Also, had to do a 25cm square picture (of anything) for an S12 marketing thing at the time of the Alice arts festival in September . . .

And we're re-hanging in less than a month, so I need new stuff for then . . .

This is the same girl as the portrait in the last but one blog . . . and the top pic is the girl from the brown recling nude in the same blog. This pose was the last of the life drawing session a couple of weeks ago, and even as a full length pose it's great, but thought I'd have a go just with a portrait again. I really like the light and the structure of her neck and chin in this, and it's got 'story' (whatever that means . . . )

These two are the 25cm square S12 promo pic. The eye was easy, the buckle a nightmare . . . still not completely happy with it in the finished version, but it had to do.
This next one is from a v old set of pics I've gradually been coming back to (including the pastel of the 'sad kid' and the 'kid with bowl' long thin oil from a year or so back). I'd tried to play around with a blobbier style (see the middle version) but came back to something a bit smoother. Just need to tidy up the hands a bit and then this is done.


This was from a pic taken when the river ran, and we watched the kids mucking about by the causeway. I'm going to have some fun trying to get the swirling water looking like water and not some kind of brown explosion I think.

Ron's Landscape

A gbit more done . . .

Struggling with Nudes . . .

We've had some great models recently at Sunday life-drawing: part of the winter arrivals of various new age types coming to the desert to find themselves. I've started playing with the idea of 'nudes +', not so much giving them a face but something else of interest: featuring the tattos or the hair or the beanie they're wearing.

These two (above and below) are of the same girl: delicate looking but surprisingly strong in her ability to hold the poses for 15 minutes at a time. She's been an exotic dancer in her past, which might account for some of the strength and great lines she makes with her poses. Great tattoo, too, which, in the black and white painting, I'm toying with the idea of giving it a light wash of colour (like in old tinted photographs). We'll see.


I have finally finished this one, above (Reclining in Brown) and the last of the series below, but it was a struggle. Not sure why, just going through a "I cant paint" phase, and not particularly enjoying painting. While these two are both good enough to go into the gallery (we have a change over next weekend, so the pressure's been on), they're not exactly how I wanted them to be. Looking forward to this phase passing!
This girl is a friend of the one above. A fire-dancer and dance teacher. She has the most amazing dreadlocks, which I really wanted to paint. She also had a kind of quiet pride in all her poses, so I ended up doing a portrait that tried to convey that sense of the anthropological drawings of Amazons from the past.

I didn't want to overwork this one, but think I did a bit, which is a shame. Ah well.