Waterfall Carnarvon Gorge

One of the places we loved visiting during our recent trip to Queensland was Carvarvon Gorge National Park.  The gorge features a number of different walks, and one of  the walks went to an extremely lovely spot called Moss Gardens.  The area was very green and lush, and had a lot of moss and a small waterfall and pool.  I took a photo of the waterfall thinking that it might make something good to paint, and I have included one of the photos for interest.  I have made two paintings of the waterfall - the first being in its original greens and with moss and ferns.  I was very disappointed with this first painting, because it had no zing and was pretty boring.  So I decided to have another go. 

Anybody who has been to Carvarvon Gorge will quickly say that the colours in my second painting are nothing like the gorge, and they are quite right.  The rock colour in the gorge is quite whitish brown, and very washed out looking.  The original photo shows the rock as being brownish white with  touches of red oxide in the cracks, so I decided to exaggerate the red, and thereby give the painting a little lift.  I am told by my husband that it makes it too unreal!!  Too bad because I quite like it.  After changing the painting to reds, I just couldn't leave the moss there anymore, as it looked wrong, so hence the changes.

Photograph - Moss Gardens Carnarvon Gorge

Carnarvon Gorge 1

Carnarvon Gorge 2

The Splash

I have been painting a few monochromes lately, and this is an example of one.  I quite enjoy using shading rather than colour for  a change.  This one just came from nowhere, but enjoyed adding the little droplets at the bottom, just to make you almost feel the splash.

The Splash

A Different Style

So here are a couple of small paintings I have done recently in a more relaxed modern style, using newspaper collage to give texture to the works.  Not sure where the ideas came from, but I feel that I could do a few more of these.  Can you tell that I like yellow?!!  The Cityscape is about cities and how they denude their surroundings, and the two posts/towers on the left are meant to be a comment on Telstra towers!!!!





Cityscape

The Stairs











More Reflections

I can't seem to stop myself from painting reflections, so here is another one.  I am not sure that the photo does the painting justice but that's how it goes.

Reflections 3 or The Boathouse

Holidays - or How to Paint in a very small space

Finally it's time to sit down and update my blog with the paintings I did while on holidays. 

I must admit that painting whilst travelling in the confined space of a very small caravan can be quite a challenge, however I was able to keep painting by limiting myself to A3 size canvass sheets, which I could finish in just a few hours, rather than doing anything too big.  In any event, I was able to get quite a few paintings done, and I definitely have more ideas to go now that I'm home again.

I haven't loaded all of the paintings - just a sample - to show you that I am still painting in all styles.



Collision



Cosmos Botanical

Droving at Hughenden

Lorikeet

Winter at Dalby

Study in Blue

Blackbutts

Salmon Hole - Beachport SA

Mandarins

Flowing water

Waterfall

Final Paintings from TAFE Course

The last part of our TAFE course concentrated on how to paint clouds and reflections.  To paint clouds you need to paint them in a number of layers of colour, thus bringing out the depth and giving them dimensionality.   To help us out with our reflections, we had a field trip down to a local lagoon, and a bit of practice, and then it was time to put paint to paper.  These are the paintings I finished up doing :



Reflections 1




Reflections 2

 Then finally I had a go at an abstract - I used teapots as my subject, based on some beautiful pottery teapots I saw at the The Potters Beechworth shop.

Teapots