Pages from a Sketchbook

I rarely make sketches as ideas for paintings but sometimes I do make a quick sketch, not only to see what an idea for a picture could look like, but also to get a sense of what size canvas might suit that idea.

Below are a few examples of biro and pencil drawings from my sketchbook. None of the ideas ended up in a painting except for the groom walking the horse, and the first high-wire walker, which became an etching.

 

Light at the Door

 

Light at the Door, 2025, oil on canvas, 91 x 61 cm

I was walking through the house recently when I saw a band of light stream across the floor and rise up the door. It seemed to suggest something alive wanting to get through the door. It also looked like an idea for a minimalist painting. Although some of my paintings are detailed, I do like minimalist images as well. Over the years I've come across two sayings, which are 'more is more' and 'less is more', and both approaches apply to my paintings, depending on what presents itself to my eye and mind. A good way to put it is to say that when I look at Holbien's paintings I don't wish for less and when I look at Morandi's paintings I don't wish for more. 

One Hundred Faces

 

For the past 6 years, Trudy McLauchlan has curated an exhibition titled One Hundred Faces. As the

pics show, the exhibition is displayed in her shop window which enables a 24 hour viewing. Trudy's shop has small handmade things that are sourced locally and internationally, from cards, puzzles, paper theatre models, animals, sketch books and etc. This exhibition is held annually and each painting is restricted to 10 x 10 cm, in keeping with the small things in the shop. Although there are 100 pictures of faces, the faces can be anything from humans, animals, birds or the moon. Anything with a face. My image is titled Woman in Gold and I enjoyed painting every brushstroke.

Trudy's shop, PLAYING IN THE ATTIC, is located in Talbot, a small regional town in Victoria, Australia.

Last 2 photo credits  -  Deborah Klein

Near Winter's End

 

Near Winter's End, 2004, oil on canvas, 76 x 51 cm

There are a lots of trees growing along the side of Lake Wendouree so this painting is a heavily edited image. The two trees in this painting caught my eye and the composition was arranged around them. I had the intention of creating a completely grey winter's day but during one of my painting sessions the clouds moved across he sky and the blue tint of a sunny sky revealed itself. I loved the contrast but even more than this, it seemed like the end of something and the beginning of something else.

Winter Light, Lake Wendouree

Winter Light, Lake Wendouree, 2024, oil on linen, 61.5 x 91.5 cm

I've painted quite a few pictures of Lake Wendouree in Ballarat. Although I've been looking at the Lake for years, it never loses its inspiration. The colours are often luminous because of the light that washes over its surface. I was interested in having a tree dissect the picture plane, because sometimes when one's view is slightly blocked it can make you look harder at what's there. Hopefully it has resulted in a more dynamic composition.

As always, I aim to paint an atmosphere that is still or serene, like a seascape by Seurat or an interior by Gwen John, two artists whose work I've admired for a long time.  

George Seurat's painting Evening, Honfleur, 1886, 

oil on canvas with painted wooden frame, 78.3 x 94 cm

Gwen John's A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris,1907-1909, oil on canvas, 31.2 x 24.8 cm

Bathroom Paintings

 

Sink with Running Tap, 2025, oil on canvas, 83.75 x 83.75 cm.

Bathroom, 1995, oil on canvas, 60.75 x 60.75 cm

I've always loved images of interior spaces because there is an aura of secrecy and intimacy about them. I've also loved the philosophy of making something interesting and poetic from the so-called ordinary things that surround us. The above two paintings were inspired by a number of artworks I've seen over the years. Vermeer's The Milkmaid and Lucian Freud's Two Japanese Wrestlers by a Sink have liquids that are forever being poured from a jug or running from a tap. It's like perpetual motion in paint. My two works were done 30 years apart which just goes to show that liquid streaming from a container of sorts is still an inspiring thing to paint.

Here are some artworks that have inspired my own paintings of still life and interiors and especially the two bathroom ones.

A detail of Vermeer's The Milkmaid, 1657?, oil on canvas

A detail of Lucian Freud's painting Two Japanese Wrestlers by a Sink,

1983-87, oil on canvas.

Cressida Cambell's Shelf Still Life, 2012, Woodblock, 90 x 138 5 cm

Autumn Sunset Over Lake Wendouree

This painting was is an invented picture inspired by the sun setting over Lake Wendouree. Every time I circuit the lake, its light and colours surprise me. The variety and beauty of nature is never ending and never palls and this fact adds to my amazement.

 

Autumn Sunset, 2024, oil on canvas, 36 x 45.75 cm

Magritte at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

My partner, Deborah Klein, and I have just returned to Melbourne after seeing an incredible exhibition of the work of Magritte. Hosted by the Art Gallery of NSW, it would have to be one of the greatest exhibitions I've ever seen.

There were so many iconic paintings, many of them from the Menil Collection in Houston. So many paintings engaged my attention for some time, much longer than I would normally look at a work. The crowds were steady but not overwhelming, to the point where I could stand in front of a painting and have it all to myself. 

I've always seen most of Magritte's works reproduced in books and I've always thought of him as a good technician but the the actual paintings revealed to me an artist of high technical ability. It just doesn't come through that way in books. The colours were exquisite and although you cannot see his brushwork, the richness of the colours elevated the work from being inert renditions.

The curatorial design of the show deserved high praise. The rooms were arranged in chronological order so his development as an artist was easy to contemplate. It was so interesting to see his early work and the amazing change that took place that made him the artist we have come to know. The lighting was excellent and occasionally a painting was hung higher than the line of sight to reflect the same high sightline of the composition. 

His ideas are wonderful. A mixture of humour, darkness and absurdity, but they seem to touch something within humanity. They aren't really puzzles to solve or even something to think about but more like something to feel. Although Magritte said his ideas are thoughts in paint, his thoughts make us feel more than they make us think.

Below are some of the images from the exhibition.