This semester I am doing another painting course (through the Centre for Continuing Education at ANU) with Michael Winters, a well-known Canberra artist. He always challenges me to push boundaries and sometimes attempt work to which I don't feel an immediate attraction. The course is
Landscape Painting - Shape, Form Colour and Texture
We are looking at the work of three artists in this course - Dorrit Black (Australian), Michael Shannon (Australian) and Andre Derain (European).
We have just finished doing work with the influence of
Dorrit Black, an Australian painter and printmaker. We were interested in form and shape with landscapes of rolling hills with the shading of colours and tones. I really love her work as it pushes realism into graphic and more simple forms.
I took several photos of the Canberra Arboretum with its hills and the artworks are based on these.
The first was a black and white drawing using a 2B graphite pencil. The Margaret Whitlam Pavillion at the Arboretum was a dominant contrasting feature.
I then did another picture in black and white with a charcoal pencil showing the graphic nature of the scene. The Telstra Tower in Canberra raises above the background hills.
The third black and white work was done in acrylic paint and was an enlarged section of a drawing. I made at attempt at some vertical lines to show the cubist influence on Dorrit's work when she was in Europe.
Finally a canvas was used with acrylic colour to show shape and form in the landscape. I like the colours and tones in this painting.
