Outback: Red - when i think of where i spent my childhood one of the things I think is Red dirt. Pentland is a small cattle town about an hour west of Charters Towers or if you're Australian illiterate - 3ish hours west of Townsvile which is on the Northern Coast of Queensland. Keep on driving and you hit Mt Isa then the Northern Territory. The smell of dry red dirt just as the rain hits it is one of the best smells in the world. Even the dry shimmering red dirt mirage in the heat gives off a smell I'll never forget.
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| Print, Outback-1: Red |
While this area isn't devoid of gum trees by any means, I decided to paint something a little more barren. I have childhood memories of my grandparents cattle station and it was sprawling nothingness of red. It's an association thing I guess. I dare say to adult eyes it wasn't ever so barren or vast. So my outback is Red, influenced by feelings from my childhood.
Outback-1 Red (41cmx31cm) This is the first two layers, It has one layer left to go - something to bring it a bit more orange - also I'm thinking of adding some very small clusters of purple desert flowers. It's still up in the air. For some reason red is a pain in the butt to photograph so details seem to be lost and it has some glare on it. I'm not as happy with this outcome as I wanted, I find the colour difficult to work with. The first print worked well and the second didn't, so I lost all I liked - fingers crossed that the final layer can bring it back.
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| Print, Outback-2: Red |
Outback-2 Red (21cmx21cm) is the second print, the small square was more sucsesfull for me - It's one of the squares I had already printed a block base orange background on and then printed over the detailed plate with the desired painting. It's a simple little print but I'm happy with it. It also has one more layer to go although I think I'll paint it directly rather than print the final details..
Update - I added another orange layer to the large Outback-1 Print and it's just muddied the colours and looks to brown now. I'll have to do another one. I'll leave it till after I finish the Reef painting - The reds are really doing my head in.
