Aussie Landscape Ideas

Walking at the local lake and wetlands provides lovely landscapes for future artworks. Australia’s landscape is often messy, full of undergrowth, birds and animal habitats.  It is common to sea black swans, parrots, galahs, cockatoos, swamp hens, blue wrens, magpies and even the odd pelican down at the lake.

I’m hoping to use these scenes to practise the watercolour skills I’m trying to develop. It is interesting, when you create art, how you look at things differently. That’s a great scene for a painting, lovely colours, shades, lights and darks, textures, all leading to a new art project.

Rippon Lea Watercolour Workshop

The stunning grounds of Rippon Lea in Elsternwick, Victoria was the setting for a wonderful watercolour workshop with the very talented artist, Mark Dober.

We tried to have the class two weeks ago but pouring ran prevented us from attending and what a stroke of luck that turned out to be because today was glorious.

We set up our site by the edge of the lake and watched Mark as he demonstrated the different aspects of mapping out our watercolour paintings. Mark was great at showing us the different steps and then letting us go for it but he also provided enough guidance and feed back to make sure we stayed on track.

As you can see, the day was stunning and we even had a visit from a very friendly duck that managed to walk over my painting, what a critic!

Rippon Lea began in 1868 when the Sargood family bought 11 hectares and built this wonderful mansion. It makes a beautiful venue for painting, picnics, weddings and even filming shows, which apparently they were doing inside when we were there.

So if you are in the area, stop in for a visit and perhaps try your hand at some painting.

 

Yarra Valley

It has been a magnificent Autumn day. You know those great days when the sky is blue with just a few fluffy white clouds, certainly too nice to be inside. So I spent the morning walking and the afternoon in the Yarra Valley trying to get some new ideas for print making and painting.

I am currently working on some bird Lino prints (I have a thing for birds and building) and would quite like to make a collection of them. Each bird would have a different scene inside it. The idea started with two collagraph pieces I did earlier on. I have kept the designs quite stylised but would like to add some colour. Two real options, first to hand colour and the other is to cut a second block which I think might be the best option. Perhaps a vineyard scene might work in the next bird.

The Yarra Valley really is a lovely area of Victoria and well worth a visit if you are here. There are plenty of tours that take you around the wineries and you can enjoy lunch and perhaps sample some of the wine.