02.17
THE RIVER
(click on image to enlarge)
This is the second painting I have done since my year-long “painter’s block” ended about two weeks ago. I have found my muse again, it seems, and loving the fact. I am noticing also, a more cheery feel to my work, than maybe six or so years ago. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I know not. But this painting is the sort of landscape I would like to be in. It is imaginary, like a place to go in my mind. And despite my English/Welsh roots, is distinctly Australian. Years back, my imaginary place to be was in England: a little babbling brook up in the fields behind my home village Parkgate. I used to catch sticklebacks there as a seven year old kid. The brook was down a narrow pathway behind the cottages, and lined with shady oaks and sycamore trees.
Unfortunately, on a visit in 1991, that brook had long gone – filled in to allow the expansion of houses, alas. I almost cried when I found out. But now, here is an inkling of my Australian Dream, far from the Madding Crowd. The painting is based loosely on a recent trip to Mon repos beach (near Bundaberg). The beach is also called Turtle Sands, because of the large influx of turtles each year, to lay their eggs (the largest turtle rookery in the Southern Hemisphere).
Mon Repos was totally deserted on the day I went there recently. And it inspired me a lot, despite having visited it many times. This painting is something of the inspiration from that day, and I feel, a new awakening emotionally and artistically in myself. Many more paintings to come soon, I hope.
(Please click on the image to enlarge – some devices may rotate the image, but all is correct at my end).