Colour and rain

I can't help feeling the irony of painting a series of panoramic views of the hills and ranges that ring Albury Wodonga in this green, green time. The landscape at the moment is just so beautiful in a lush, green way. It's so easy on the eye.
The trip up the Olympic Highway is spectacular with the lush growth and the wonderful canola yellow. Usually the yellow of the crop is a bright patch in a drearier dry landscape and in the drought years it was the only colour, apart from the blue of the rainless sky, in a very very dry and dead vista.
So now I am painting the hills of Wodonga and am trying to get the intensity of the grassy patches, the olives and brightness of the well drenched trees and the far off blue of the distant ranges.
It does feel a bit weird. Two years ago for the Hume Wodonga Art Prize I painted the hills south west
of Wodonga and the painting was yellow ochre and gold and umber.

Yellow Afternoon 2011

Weather Changing I, II 2011

Anyway for this upcoming exhibition I will be 'in the momen't and just attempt to solve the problems at hand.

Apart from evoking the sense of distance, keeping the work loose and dynamic yet keeping a degree of measurement the palette will change with each session in the studio.

 Working quickly before work need to broaden out the scale and knock back the surface.

 Better scale to show a city nestled withing the hills.

Shaking up the whole surface with a warm ochre wash.

Starting number 2, learning from the first to be simpler.

 

 Light and dark and that green.

Knocking back the saturation.

Keeping loose and adding information is the challenge. The start of a painting is fun and exciting. Then the fun becomes something to hold onto - best to walk away at times. I like working for an hour or two then letting the things dry and coming back later.

Early Spring sunshine and warm weather

In this part of the world it is warm and sunny, incredible spring weather. Not long ago thermals were an essential wardrobe item.

Yesterday afternoon spent beside Hume Weir, now at 99% capacity. So full with the countryside so green it's unbelievable. Intensely emerald green grass is just beautiful and the green sets off the gum leaves really well.

In Albury the magnolias are fully out, blossom everywhere, daffodils and bulbs too. The perfume of the wild growing freesias on the nature corridor from Nail Can to the river is exquisite.

Re painting - after the second session on the first work it seems that my day in the sunny green landscape has affected the palette. Early days yet but getting a better sense of the sweeping vista from Eastern Hill back to Wodonga.