On the Home Stretch

All that remains is to sift through my photographs of Black-Footed Rock Wallabies to find one that suits this scene. The photo that prompted this painting includes a wallaby, but I think there are better poses to choose from among my other photos.

As well as adding a wallaby, I'm sure I'll fiddle with the foreground just a little before I call it done. Whichever wallaby I choose, I know where it will be positioned and I've left the back wall of the cave a little lighter there to provide some latitude for fine tuning as a final step.

Cheers
Pete

A Last Look at the Sun - Progress

After a recent mid-week public holiday I decided that as I'd enjoyed the time off so much, an additional day off was a good idea - another advantage of self-employment! I spent a good portion of the day working on the painting pictured here.

Black-Footed Rock Wallabies are certainly appealing creatures - they're worthy painting subjects in their own right and will feature prominently in this painting - but,  above all else, it's the dramatic late afternoon light in the reference photo that attracted me to this scene. The abrupt transition from the brightly sunlit rock face surrounding the cave entrance to the foreground area in shadow caught my eye and I hope I'm able to convey this aspect of the subject convincingly. What concerns me a little is that the viewer may not "get it"; I'm tempted therefore to hint at the time of day when I assign a title to this piece - "A Last Look at the Sun" is currently at the top of my short-list.

Cheers
Pete

Memories of a Special Place

These words and photographs are several years old, but with thoughts of Western Australia's Yardie Creek drifting into my consciousness with increasing frequency of late, it seems perfectly reasonable to revisit them. I hope you'll forgive this little indulgence!

A favourite activity when Sandi and I visit Cape Range National Park is paddling our kayaks up Yardie Creek. The creek is tidal, and although the navigable portion extends inland barely one kilometre, the abundance of birdlife - particularly towards the end of the day - makes it an enjoyable experience and a fantastic way to add to my collection of reference photographs. Add to that the likelihood of seeing black-footed rock wallabies along the rock walls bordering the creek and it's no wonder we return year after year. Invariably, it's memories of the creek which seduce us into packing the vehicle, hitching up our camper van and facing the 1200 kilometre drive north yet again.

When the last tourist coaches have departed for the day, we like to think of the creek as our very own sanctuary; there's something immediately calming about entering the creek after the short paddle to the creek mouth from our beachside camp. After negotiating the shallow sandbars at the entrance, we paddle into deeper water and find ourselves surrounded by schools of large mullet which seem to delight in launching themselves out of the water just metres from us.

As we continue upstream, the rock walls on either side grow in height and in the early evening take on an other-worldly ruddy glow, almost as if they have their own internal light source. After numerous visits here, we know in advance where to keep an eye out for rock wallabies but we often hear the squabbling family groups before we actually spot them above us.

As we pass the mangrove-covered island and reach the bend in the creek, we check whether the huge nest perched precariously under a rock overhang is occupied. The resident osprey is often home by this time, but may still be at the creek mouth, perched on top of one of the navigation markers there or bathing in the shallows following a fishy evening meal.

As we paddle onwards, stopping frequently to soak up the atmosphere, the acoustics continually enchant us. If we're lucky, butcher birds are calling to one another, their haunting flute-like songs echoing between the rock walls. In such a setting, Sandi and I find ourselves whispering to one another involuntarily and dipping our paddles as silently as we can manage, as if any unnecessary noise would break the spell. In stark contrast, when the little corellas arrive in pairs to roost for the night, there's a deafening cacophony of raucous squawking which seems almost sacrilegious given our magical surroundings.

By the time we're forced to leave by the encroaching darkness, most of the creek's inhabitants have taken up station for the night. Noisy mangrove herons are often present among the mangrove roots, searching in earnest for one last fish, and reef egrets and cormorants have usually claimed their favourite rock ledge or crevice. Overhead, swallows and rainbow bee-eaters swoop and dive as they take advantage of the frenzied evening insect activity.

With such a flurry of activity, there's little wonder so many of my recent wildlife paintings have been inspired by our visits to Yardie Creek. I'm sure we'll be unable to resist the urge to visit again in the years to come.

Cheers
Pete

An Afternoon's Work

I slipped away from work at noon today and spent a pleasant afternoon working on this painting. I darkened and refined the cave walls on the left-hand side of the cave entrance and made a start on the sunlit rock face after experimenting on some paper off-cuts to establish the colour mixes I'll use.     

The colours are pretty intense, but I think they're close to what I want to achieve; I can always knock them back with some darker glazes as a final step if I feel it's necessary.

I tend to flit from one area of the painting to another, but my lack of discipline doesn't seem to be having any adverse effects - so far, so good!

Cheers
Pete

Inside the Cave

As the image below shows, I've started applying layers of colour to define the interior of the cave as authentically as I can.

Cameras being the liars they are, the cave walls in my reference photographs appear very dark and almost featureless, but I know that reflected light from the harshly lit exterior is finding its way into the cave revealing various crevices and folds of rock. As the painting progresses, I'll be in a better position to assess how much the cave walls should be darkened and where it might be appropriate to apply warmer coloured glazes over the illuminated areas within the cave. I know I'm tip-toeing a little, but until I develop the painting more fully, I'm happy to take a cautious approach.  

Cheers
Pete

Rock Art

I'm embarrassed to note that it was some 14 months ago that I wrote of my intention to resurrect an old painting subject featuring a black-footed rock wallaby surveying his neighbourhood from the mouth of a cave. As I very belatedly turn those good intentions into actions, I'm conscious of the fact that my enthusiasm for a painting can often fade as work progresses. However, as the original reference photo and the concept it gave rise to date back to 2008 in this case, I can take heart from the fact that I'm still enthusiastic about the subject matter despite the passage of so much time.

An earlier attempt at this painting failed to meet my expectations and I abandoned it at the half-way point - a not uncommon occurrence! Although the canvas ended up behind the art room door with my other rejects, the inspiration for it survived intact; I always knew I'd revisit the idea, which is as much about the play of late afternoon light on the rock face as it is about a wallaby in a cave. With that in mind, when Sandi and I visited the area twelve months after I took the original photo, I made sure I took several more photographs at the same time of day, paying particular attention to the right-hand side of the cave entrance which the earlier photos had failed to capture completely.

It could simply be indecision on my part, or perhaps particular subjects and the way I envisage them as paintings drives the choice to use particular mediums, supports and techniques. Whatever my motivation in this instance, it's hard to dismiss the advantages of developing a range of approaches I can call on as I contemplate each painting subject.

In the case of this painting, I'm on the verge of completing a fairly detailed preparatory drawing on rough 640gsm Arches paper, after which I'll erase the grid lines and lighten the pencil drawing as much as I dare before coating the paper's surface with acrylic sealer. That done, I'll begin to apply heavily diluted, scumbled washes of acrylic paint, "sneaking up" on the final colours and tonal values as I do so. With this approach I have something in common with the watercolourists: when mixing colours, I avoid the use of white paint which would render the paint opaque. As a result, I need to be constantly on guard against overshooting the mark with my tonal values - there's no easy way back if they become too dark in a particular area. Problems in that regard have been the main reason I've explored other more forgiving techniques in recent times.

I certainly haven't discarded the oil painting of the reef egret I began a short time ago, but acrylic paint and the techniques I've described are the closest thing I have to a "comfort zone" and will hopefully provide the confidence boost I feel I need if I'm to continue exploring less familiar mediums and methods from time to time.

Cheers
Pete

The Call of the Easel

View Larger Map

As I've mentioned recently, it's necessary that Sandi and I remain in the city for the time being. The location of the house we purchased late last year was a significant factor in our choice and points to our shared love of wildlife and the bush. The flats and riverine reserve indicated above are within easy walking distance of our home and act as a haven not just for us, but for the local bird-life too.

Through these past summer months I've made the half-hour trip into the city and have managed to be at my desk by 7am. I'm not a natural early-riser and this arrangement isn't quite ideal, but the opportunity to leave work at 3pm allows me to put the remaining daylight hours to good use and is a compelling reason to continue this routine. Whether I'm able to drag myself out of bed at 6am as winter approaches and the days shorten remains to be seen!

Many of the recent photographs I've been able to collect would not have been possible without the use of our kayaks. We can strap a pair of wheels to each of them and walk them to our launch spot at the nearby weir in the space of 15 minutes. With the wheels stowed behind us under the bungee-cord on the kayak decks, we're no sooner in the water than photo opportunities begin to appear.

The hum of traffic in the background is a constant reminder that the city is close by, but there are occasional lulls and we can sometimes forget briefly that the suburban sprawl lies just beyond the riverside vegetation. The illusion of solitude is enhanced somewhat when we choose to paddle downstream towards the bridges where the river is at its greatest distance from the surrounding roads and houses. 

Although the process of collecting these images is a worthwhile activity in its own right, the photographs are not an end in themselves; as I sort through them after the kayaks are safely stowed away, I discard the majority of them and mentally short-list those I feel would make worthy painting subjects. I've owned my new camera for a short time, but have already gathered a wealth of useful reference material and received a much-needed boost to my enthusiasm levels where turning some of them into paintings is concerned.

Cheers

Pete