After visiting so many gorges and spectacular lookouts up here in The Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia, I guess it was inevitable that I would have to momentarily return to figurative painting and… just for fun… create something to celebrate all those views... Acrylic on Canvas Board 58 cm x 48 cm

Arthur Streeton - The River, New South Wales, 1896, Australia, oil on canvas; The Purple Noon's Transparent Might, Sydney, New South Wales; The Murray and the Mountain, 1930, oil on canvas

Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (1867–1943) was a great Australian Impressionist landscape painter. He was born in Duneed, Victoria, Australia. Aged 15 years, he began night classes at the National Gallery of Victoria School of Design. He also learned the rudiments from studying art manuals and photographs.

At age nineteen, he began an apprenticeship as a lithographer. He also joined a painting group where he painted plein air, alongside Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, and Louis Abrahams. He soon became a full time painter and developed a friendship with Charles Conder. The group of artists often camped and painted outdoors at Box Hill, Heidelberg, and the Yarra. They also provided art lessons and formed the Heidelberg School. During the 1890s, Streeton traveled further inland in New South Wales to explore the outback and the Hawkesbury River.

Streeton traveled to England. He took some time to adjust his artistic identity and become acquainted with very different landscapes. His best market was sending his English works for sale in Australia. Gradually, he began to win recognition in England, France, and the United States.

In 1915, Streeton served as a private in the Australian Army Medical Corps. After three years, he was appointed an official war artist and painted the Western Front in France. After the war, Streeton returned to painting romantic visions of the Australian landscape. By this time, he was a well-established painter. In 1937, was knighted for services to the arts.

Taylor's Farm House, Green Lake, Victoria photo credit, Lynton Brown Landscapes

tree by the dam, oil pastel on wood panel.

drawn plein air in one session, but unfinished because I encountered a snake on the trail where I sat, and promptly went back inside lol.

some detail pics! it was hot outside today, so my pastels were nice and smooth.

Australian Winter. 

Jindabyne, August 2019. Portra400 with NikonF100 insta twitter patreon        

The Ninth Wave by EMERALD IMAGING PHOTOGRAPHY Via Flickr: The Ninth Wave Kate Bush Wave after wave, each mightier than the last 'Til last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame First time to Whale Beach in Sydneys North Shore, and I'll definitely be back here. A great morning out with some old friends and a new friend found. Hope you like "The Ninth Wave" Cheers, Mike

Dead Calm in Lake Bonney, SA

My photo of the sacred rock that is Uluru.

Sale is now on, follow me on Bluethumb!

https://bluethumb.com.au/tracey-ann-reynolds/Artwork/dhi-kil-kung-still-water

Solem et Stellas

Originally written as part of a year 10 EOY English exam. Edited 8 days later, after receiving feedback, to post here.

*Original prose short story*

  Ivy was Australian. The outback country, the arid wasteland, a continent whose dryness is second only to the barren white of Antarctica. Ivy was an Australian. But as she stepped out into the ancient spanning, rust-red desert, she felt more homesick than ever. 

  “Keep up, Ives!” Her pa called from his place five metres in front of her. The indomitable spring in his step didn’t seem to notice the furious sun beating down on them from above, seemingly determined to turn them both to ash.    “You slow down and I’ll keep up!” she called back, but he bounded on a few metres further and turned, with a grin on his face- “what was that? Couldn’t hear you! Come on Ives, we're not far now!” Ivy rolled her eyes and quickened her pace, to the delight of the already large sweat pools in the armpit of her once purple, now mostly red shirt. ‘We’re not far now’ was something of a favourite phrase for her pa, as he had echoed the sentiment many times as of yet.

  Ivy was a city girl. She liked being a city girl; her pa had grown up in the outback and liked talking about it. “You have it lucky Ivy- you don’t have to worry about snakes!” Or “spiders!” Or “getting fresh water!” Or “Melanoma at the age of 12 because the damned sun is jealous of earth-folk for not building cities on it instead!” or what have you. Him and Ivy lived in St Kilda, four minutes and sixteen seconds of walking away from a day well spent at the beach. Well spent for Ivy, that is. Pa never cared much for the beach. Ivy found herself longing for one such day as she made it to her pa’s side, relaxing the speedwalk she had adopted to catch up. The beach had sun, but not like this; it was gentle, soft, welcoming. The sun here was oppressive. And at the beach, you could always hop into the water to cool off. Instead, they just kept walking, her pa occasionally pointing out a lizard or interesting rock. The dust piled up on her shirt. 

  The desert wasn’t red anymore. As the sun hid its face behind the proud horizon, tired from a long day of glaring at Ivy, the landscape began to shift. As her and her pa settled down to sleep, she felt a chill cut through the arid blanket they had been wrapped in all day. The sand now settled into a cool brown and blue, and Ivy sat herself down and chewed on some trail mix. It was just her and her pa, for the most part. They faced the world together, an agreement they had made long ago.    She hadn’t been a small child when her other dad left, as the trope so often went. She was lucky enough to spend her first sixteen years as a team of three; but looking back she had realised that her dad had treated Pa like trash- she missed him, but understood that nobody would be better for him staying. She still saw him sometimes, always with some new man or woman he’d 'picked up' last week. It always went the same. He says hi, she says hi, he gives her her Christmas present- which is, invariably, a poster of a show she had told him about the last time they’d spoken- she gives him a card she’d made on the train there, she eats lunch with him and his partner of the month, takes the train back home, and spends her day with Pa. She tolerated Dad. She loved Pa.  And Pa loved her. He didn’t really ‘get’ Ivy, and they both understood this. He gave her space, she gave him socks for his birthday and her Sunday nights for watching the footy, and they both cooked each other the worst meals known to the human race. 

  As Ivy finished setting up her little sleeping-bag, she saw Pa standing apart from the little makeshift campsite they had created. Walking over to join him, she customarily tapped him on his left shoulder before pulling up by his right.    “Hey Ivy,” he said, turning to her. Damn. He somehow always managed to get over that trick - once she even tried tapping him on the correct shoulder to throw him off, and he still got it right. “Lovely night, isn’t it?”   “Yeah. Nice and cool for a change.” She had meant to joke with him. He looked at her.   “Look, I... know it’s a bit uncomfortable. We’ll be out of here soon. I just… I needed this” He turned his head away again, back to the horizon. The sun had fully set, and they stood in the light of the very bright lamp in Ivy’s left hand. “We… me and your dad… we didn’t do stuff like this. Well, he did stuff like this. I went with him. He didn’t come with me. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t have.”   “I guess.” Ivy looked at the ground. They didn’t talk about Dad. Pa went back to smiling.   “This is my place, Ivy. Your place is the beach, right? My place is here.” He took in a deep breath and looked around. Ivy kicked herself. She felt awful about having complained all day. She glanced at him.   “I’m glad we’re at your place, Pa. I like it here,” she smiled. Smiling back, he ruffled her hair.   “Yeah, yeah. ‘I like it here, dad!' You don’t have to like it. But I have a feeling that you will,” and he turned off the lamp in Ivy’s hand. 

  The sky, before in its dying breath of orange and dark blue, split open as they looked up in unison. The sky crammed full of an infinite tapestry of tiny lights, all billions of kilometres away. You can see hundreds of stars from St Kilda beach. You can see trillions here.    “Oh… my…” Ivy stared, speechless. She had never seen anything so beautiful. Her pa grinned.    “Good, eh? Your Dad was never much for stars. He always liked the rain. What you reckon?” Pa held a light tone in his voice, but Ivy could see his eyes watering, and his hands were shaking. He smiled a huge, wobbly smile.    “The sun doesn’t get centre stage all the time, Ives. The stars can show their faces when they get the chance.”

And they stood, and stared at the blue and yellow and purple and gold tapestry spanning before them. Ivy wiped her had across her red shirt. Her hand came away coated in dust, and the purple shone in the light.

A friend of mine is Irish, and he hates living in Australia because he says it's ugly. Which is wild to me, because every day I have the opportunity to take photos like these

Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (1867–1943) - The Pool of Venus, 1920, oil on canvas

Old farm house SW Queensland

mountain study I - Muntambin, oil pastel on wooden panel, 22.5cm x 20.5cm.