Day 127 SaturdayAugust has come and gone in a fury of painting, and little else. The lack of posts attests to my single-minded devotion to stay at the easel and finish the body of work. I leave Mildura tomorrow and my trip is pretty much over. I have about 7 totally finished big paintings and another 6 that are close. I’m putting all of the work up so that it stands witness to the productivity of this trip. There is so much to say, but I will let the paintings do all of the talking.

Day 102 Friday This painting of a hazelnut orchard was started south of Eden while staying with a hospitable local art teacher. His dog Tyrone would accompany me down to the orchard and run around while I shot some videos and started this painting. I decided to put him in running, as a counter to the bent form of the man shovelling hazelnuts into a wheelbarrow. This painting lacks the unity of the some of the other canvases which contain rows of homogonous trees, but makes up for it in its movement and spatial qualities.

Day 101 Thursday
I worked on this big painting for about a week before I had my rest, and used my downtime to contemplate where to take it. With nothing in the immediate foreground, and a relief-like horizontal composition, I decided to extend the branches of the persimmon trees to the top of the canvas to hold everything together. Also because of the relief-like composition, the scale of the branches, fruit and interstices of background coming through the branches are all of a similar modularity which helps the brushstrokes form a random pattern in light and shade. I’m titling this one ‘the nightingale brothers’ after the name of the company that owns the orchard, and that name, plus ‘Wandiligong’ the locality can be seen stencilled on the tub to the right.