Peter Neish

A sketch of the North-Eastern corner of Parliament House in Victoria as viewed from the garden. 11 x 9cm (roughly actual size on my screen).

I’m back – just thought I’d take a year off while I had a crazy year of work, changing jobs and reorganising! Better ease into this lightly with some quick sketches. Here’s a little doodle. Might do some more of these…

These beautiful capsicums caught my eye at the farmers market at the Collingwood Children’s farm last week. I’m not that happy with them – the apples turned out a bit better – but a fun subject none the less.

Oil on Canvas 25 x 30cm.

Probably not the best photo, but this is the second in my small still life series.

Oil on Canvas 25 x 30cm.

The first in a series of small still life studies.

Oil on Canvas 25 x 30cm.

Oil on canvas (apologies for the poor photo). Over painting the flower in the top right, I created this composition based on a shadow box display. Its also a reference to the collection of objects – either by museums or herbaria or individuals. Why do we collect what we do? How are these objects related?  Why did I choose these objects? I’m not really sure myself.

Have been playing around with some quick acrylic sketches on paper to try and get a bit of looseness into my work. Managed to do eight of these in about 2 hours and had a lot of fun. Here are a couple from this session.

This a painting done in acrylic based on the conte sketch below. Not sure that acrylic is the medium for me, but allowed me to work quickly and to do some layering of textures (particularly on the wall behind).

I went to this late Saturday afternoon. The crowds had thinned out and it was easy to have a good look at all the art – and I mean a lot of art! Over 2000 works of art were on display. Given the large number of works, I was impressed by how well the they were displayed. Almost everything was well lit and there were only a few corners that felt a bit ‘out of the way’. Also, some of the smaller works suffered a bit from too much crowding.

I was impressed by the range of works. From the artist information, I felt that the organisers were after traditional works – everything had to be framed and definitely no abstracts. However, within these constraints there was everything from Fred Williams-like landscapes and impressionistic still-lifes through to more traditional oil and watercolour landscapes and portraits.

One thing I particularly liked were a number of large scale watercolours. The use of washes and wet-in-wet was very impressive and skillful. Getting up close to some of these pictures revealed a swirling interaction of colours and tones that was very engaging. Likewise, many of the “traditional” plein-air paintings are alive with crazy jabs of paint that make the painting sing with energy.

The organisers did a good job of arranging related pictures with groupings for portraits, botanical studies, birds and animals, and miniatures. The landscapes, streetscapes and still lifes (which made up the majority of the show) were scattered throughout.

With a large show like this, you are unlikely to have a really good look at very many paintings and I find its often first impressions that decide if a closer look is warranted. I’m sure there are many gems in there that I didn’t discover.