Portrait of Lili

When I look at other people's work, I'm often most drawn to portraits and figurative paintings... secretly itching to try it myself but hesitating for good reason. Anyway, with Lili around as a willing and very photogenic model, I couldn't resist trying my first portrait. I had to re-do the face completely a couple of times. It's hard enough just to do a mouth, but to do a particular mouth, that's challenging to the extreme. I'm seriously feeling the need for some instruction, but will continue practicing and trying to work it out until I can get some lessons. I want to try another portrait next...

Eucalypts

It's hard not to fall in love with the many types of gum trees as we travel from place to place. They are especially beautiful at dusk. If only I could do them justice in a painting!! I can see a million things wrong with this painting but had enough of it now. It's A3 size (all my previous landscapes til now are around A4)...

Having trouble with grass

This is the Grampians as seen late in the afternoon from Dunkeld, a town to the south. I tried doing the grass in the foreground 3 times without success so have left it as is. Must study the art of grass making...

Venus Baths

I tried something a little more abstract this time and I think it worked pretty well although I still want to get my brush strokes looser. This is the Venus Baths at the foot of Wonderland Ranges in the Grampians, a spectacularly beautiful spot, we should have take our cozzies!

Along the road to Ballarat

Here is my latest painting which was done from a photo I took along the road the Ballarat...

Cloud study

I visited a gallery in Daylesford and was inspired by the artist owner whose work was on the walls - lovely and very large painterly landscapes. She said that she does them really quickly, so I decided to do this cloud study much quicker than I would usually take - around 1 and a half hours. This is Lake Mulwala in Yarrawonga, where the Murray River has a weir that created this lake and killed a whole Red River Gum forest.

Kiama sunrise

Here is my latest painting from a photo I took in Kiama.

Snowy River & Wolumla Church

Here are my latest 2 paintings that I did after getting some guidance from an excellent book I picked up in the art shop in Wangaratta (can't resist an art book!). Before the painting in colour you do a study in black and white to get the value relationships correct. It's been a bit of a breakthrough for me and I'm looking forward to doing more...

Snowy River - Orbost

Church in Wolumla