This one is a plein air work of the Shipley Plateau as seen from Kanimbla. It had it’s finishing touches made in my studio after a day onsite as many of my plein air works do. I wanted to bring out the wonderful rhythm of the escarpment and the curves and bumps of the hills that lead the eye up to it.
I made this plein air work at Point Pilcher near Medlow Bath in the Blue Mountains. The landscape was so dramatic that for some reason I felt the need to lighten it up and jazz it up with a bit of funky cartoon like brushwork, hence the title Point Pilcher Bop. The clouds are barely exaggerated.
A plein air painting from Kamimbla that looks back in an easterly direction towards Shipley’s Plateau. I’ve admired Elioth Gruner’s paintings since I first laid eyes on “Spring Frost” at the AGNSW when I was a small child. I really like the simplicity and the restrained Modernism of his Australian landscapes from the 1930’s and 40’s and tried to bring something from that in this painting.
Nothing to do with Science Fiction, the reason I made this little plein air painting at Kanimbla is that I was attracted to the purple patches of bushes or vines that seemed to be riding the bright green roller coaster hills in the middle ground. They seemed to be stuck on, clinging on .
Waves of mountains and hills catching the last rays from Hargreaves Lookout looking south
Late afternoon sun from Hargreaves Lookout near Blackheath NSW
The Haystack Berambing, 40 x 25.5cm Acrylic on board
The pot shaped hill known to the locals as The Haystack at Berambing painted plein air about 18 months after the record breaking bush fires of 2020
That time of day when the lights come on and cooking smells start to drift out from the kitchen.
Kanimbla is a rural place that lies under the Western escarpment of the Blue Mountains in NSW
Since 2015 I’ve made around five versions of this rock in Kanimbla. I’m lucky enough to have two sets of friends who see this unusual Blue Mountains outcrop every day from their back verandahs. To me it has an appeal as a subject that is probably similar to the way Mont Sainte-Victoire kept drawing Cezanne back to paint it over and over again. There is always something new to see. It’s also a bit David Lynch I think.
Rhett Brewer - Artist 