The Ark

      

"The Ark" 

oil on panel, 24 x 16 inch.

I've had a long standing habit of going for a walk and taking photos of subjects that are interesting.  As a result I've far too many piles of photos and now digital images.  It's interesting to flip through these looking at what I thought was interesting 25 years ago.  

This is from around that time, a bit older I think, and is in a now gentrified suburb Stones Corner in Brisbane, Queensland.  At the time the suburb was industrial in nature and a bit rough around the edges.  The image is taken in the strip of land behind the warehouses and shops.  I had walked down an alley from the street fronts there's this scene small white car against the large shadowed side of a boat, with the warehouse backdrop.  I'm told it is a Volkswagen (thanks Paul!) maybe this one or similar.

There was a lot to like here and I hope I did some justice.  The bright cream-white of the car, the weathered boat up on blocks and it's dark silhouette, and the weathered warehouse.  

I was thinking more about surface and texture than anything for this painting.  There's passages of saturated painted surface like the sky and areas where it's still showing the turps wash from the sketch in like the weathered boards on the side of the boat, the door of the warehouse, and the grassy foreground.  The impasto creamy white of the car.  And if there's one thing I'd do differently it would be to desaturate the greens a bit further.

A while back I I did a tiny 6 x 4 inch version of the same scene which I think I might work up at the larger scale as well.  The addition of the orange brick to the right and pink painted fibro to the left adds some interest.

"The Ark" 
oil on panel, 6 x 4 inch.

As an aside, in the new year I'm hoping to ramp up activity in the small scale.  Yet to decide but maybe a goal like fifty 6x4s for 2024 alongside the rest.  "Doing some reps" in any endeavour is necessary to build skills and I like the idea of framing up 2, 3, and 4 little paintings together. 

To see what colours were on my palette go to a related post about my palette and colours.