Afternoon sun on the lawn at Bedervale Homestead

This was painted en Plein air at the Garden Open Day at the very beautiful Country Estate of Bedervale, near Braidwood, NSW. It was such a gorgeous day, with the late summer sun in full force lighting up the lovely grounds of the main house and one if the lambs that was being hand-reared was very curious about our painting group and came for lots of cuddles and scratches.
I really enjoyed this day because the family of the house came out to talk with us about living at Bedervale for generations which really enhanced our appreciation of the house and the gardens, including explaining how they came to source the incredible egg-yolk yellow ochre of the lime paint, to match the original paint, an unique colour that looked amazing in the afternoon sun and shadows.
It was a beautiful weekend and I loved painting the incredible green if the lawns lit up against the dark ochres of the house topped by a bright pink roof with lace work that looked a bit like cake icing, as well as the inviting deep verandah in shadow and details like the glinting giant birdcage. I wanted to give a sense of the luxurious but relaxed beauty if this colonial Homestead and the sunny day we spent (eating scones and cakes) in the garden.
If you like visiting historic gardens and finding out the real life history behind them, I highly recommend visiting and speaking to the friendly family members about this house and estate, which is also their home.

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Recently I joined a Plein Air group of friends that goes out once a week to local areas of bush around Canberra and that's lead to a return to traditional landscape skills. I'm posting the results of t
my plein air outings and experiments, from cheaper quick oil studies to larger more expensive works that are fully completed. I love painting in the outdoors because there's something that happens when you're painting outside that captures the atmosphere and qualities of light that just doesn't occur in the studio or using photographs.

I usually paint scenes to which I have an emotional response, whether it's a still-life of a domestic setting that tells a story of that house, or a street scene of old Sydney suburbs where I grew up; but in every case I'm choose scenes that have some emotional resonance for me. in currently doing a series about Sydney urban scenes, where I love painting the special light and architecture of Sydney and the feeling of the harbour city that I miss so much. I really love the European Impressionists and like to try to see and paint Sydney with a feeling of their sensibilities and techniques, like applying the quiet harmonies of Sisley to Paddington houses or Monet's prismatic colour and love of sunshine and different qualities of light to Sydney harbour scenes.

I also love painting scenes of my household, so I will be doing a series of paintings of Interiors like scenes from bathrooms or our dining rooms, where I paint my family doing small things like reading or relaxing or interacting with each other. I really love the Intimist painters and really enjoy painting these kind of 'mis-en-scenes' of regular family life like little dramas or painting still-lives of things like stuff strewn in a table-tops or an array of ornaments or even a meal being prepared on a kitchen bench that are just snippets of the haphazard moments of daily life., where these ordinary objects are beautiful as with Matisse's bedrooms and vases and table-tops . With my paintings of these kind of domestic snapshots, I'm really inspired by the ideas of the Vuillard and Bonnard that real life happens mostly in doors and these domestic scenes can show something greater of moments of beauty or grace that happen within mundane places and routines, and as does another favourite inspiration Fairfield Porter does in his painting of family and friends, convey that life lovingly and the small things that make it up affectionately.