This acrylic on 88 x 58cm framed canvas is available on my Bluethumb Store for $1570.
I like to get out into nature as often as I can, and fortunately Canberra has a plethora of green spaces to explore - some out on the edge of town where the suburbs stop and the wilds begin, and some sandwiched between suburbs as the hills in Canberra aren't built on above a certain height.
So this painting is inspired by one of my favourite walks within Canberra, a trail running over Davidson and Red Hills. In particular, a steep part of the track climbing up Davidson, where there's a huge and striking dead tree and amazing views to to the north. I've tried to capture from memory the essence of an evening there, the last rays casting long shadows, a cyclist labouring up the slope, and a peaceful golden silence extending out to the distant mountains.
However, the painting didn't always look quite like this. Here's my first attempt at it, which hung on my wall for several months before I was sufficiently annoyed that I took it down and reworked it in order to achieve my vision for this piece...
As you can see, the sky in particular is quite different. It’s far more vibrant – too vibrant. At the time I was focusing on developing an impressionist style, and trying to make everything in a painting full of dabs and strokes and dots, regardless of context or the balance of the artwork. I’d decided to eschew smooth gradients and blends as I wanted to emulate my impressionist heroes like Vincent.
Unfortunately the result just didn’t work for me. That sky in particular was just way too busy. It didn’t give a feeling of atmosphere or depth or the golden light I’d hoped to capture. Instead it almost vibrated with diagonally striped clouds that seemed to fight with the foreground for attention.
The decision to rework the painting was not easy. After all it wasn’t a bad painting, or so I told myself. The moment I took a brush to it, there’d be no guarantee that it’d work out at all. It took a lot of thought, and sub-conscious processing, before I was clear on what I’d do if I did rework the painting, and once that happened I no longer had a choice.
This is the second painting I’ve reworked like this – the other one, Mysterious Ways, also annoyed me for a long period of time and turned out even better than I expected when I picked up the courage to take it on. It’s worth it, for me anyway, and really helpful in seeing how far you’ve come as an artist.
