Every year at Mudgee, a country town in NSW Australia, a group of about 50 painters gather to paint the landscape around the town. They visit nearby vineyards, farms, rivers and mountains.
This year I joined them. Here are some pics:
I've been in Canberra for three days so far. Each day is a different venue: Weston Park Lakeside, National Arboretum and today: Government House!
It is the inaugural event called Capital (Plein Air) Outside Painting Festival. More than 100 people have signed up, and each day many paintings are produced.
Both beginners and professionals are welcome, and there are workshops and lectures from well known plain-air artists like Warwick Fuller, Leon Holmes and others.
New work, Empress Falls in the Blue Mountains.
This canvas is 180cm wide I’ll post progress photos, plus others that I’m working on.
After a few months with Youtube, it's time to get back to real work, and prepare for three group shows this year.
I'll be showing in each of the Australian Affordable Art Fairs: Brisbane, Melbourne and then Sydney.
Gallery NWC in Katoomba NSW is hosting myself and about eight other artists. (Last year was a great success and I almost sold out!)
I'll be continuing on with my bushland theme, but also doing seascapes. Here are a few studio views:
I have restarted filming and uploading Youtube videos, and the latest video has hit the jackpot! Thousands of views in the first week, and my subscriptions have increase by 200, to more than 10,000.
Check out my Youtube page on this web site, and follow the links.
Two days with the watercolour master!
Friday was rainy, and we planned to paint at the Royal Art Society. Instead, the weather improved so we ventured down to Lavender Bay to paint the harbour. It was so good listening and watching Alvaro Castagnet demo-paint. After each of his demos, we painted our own scenes. Alvaro visited each artist and offered specific advice.
The second day we were upstairs at the gallery, and Alvaro did a slow demo with pauses for the artists to repeat his image, a classic Alvaro street scene.
After lunch he critiqued each work, and then did a fourth demonstration of a cafe scene from Europe.
He was very generous with his sharing of knowledge, and very patient with repeating important points for anyone who asked!
I came away with a better understanding of watercolour, a strong, powerful medium that can hold its own against acrylic and oils. And a healthy disrespect for reference photographs, and reality!
Below are my paintings from the weekend.
Although the week of Plein Air painting at Mudgee, NSW Australia started with rain, it soon cleared to sunny blue skies. I painted with John Rice, Don Talintyre, David Landgrebe, Nicole and about 20 others!
My paintings from the week:
I'm pleased to report that five lovely buyers chose my art at the AAFair in Brisbane. So big thank you to them, and to Katherine and Nathan for their work during the Fair. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this year. But from all accounts it was aa lot of fun!
Here are the sold paintings:
For me, this is a non painting. I took it all the way to finished, then scraped it back to the linen. It is reset.
100 x 76cm
Oil and charcoal on linen