2013 onwards

When I retired in late 2010, I intended to spend most of my time painting, but other obligations prevented that.

After deciding to swap from acrylics to oils for outdoor painting, I joined an advanced class run by Margaret, and that provided both expert advice and the encouragement of a painting group over the years, to keep my brushes in use when I didn’t have time at home for painting.

The collection of paintings produced in that group is gradually increasing, although still at a slow pace.

To enable current paintings to be seen first, these are presented in reverse chronological order, with the latest at the start.

This was finished in my indoor painting groups after an initial sketch with the plein air group in Dec. 2025.

You can see the initial sketch here: Capt Sturt’s Cottage, Dec 2025

My excuses for the unsatisfactory outdoor sketch are:

1. I was still recovering from surgery, I think the anaesthetic affected my thinking, and
2. I didn’t have much time outdoors. We only had two weeks at this site, and most of the time for one of those mornings was taken up with a visit to the nearby surgeon’s consulting rooms.

Although it became a fiddly exercise, lacking the fresh brushwork of an outdoor sketch, I enjoyed exploring ways to improve the tonal range and textures.

Paul (pouring champagne) and I used to often visit this outdoor cafe, and I took many photos.  Shortly after I started the painting, the area was redeveloped, and this enjoyable site is now gone.

This painting took years.  The inclusion of people in detail turned it into a series of portraits, my painting group didn’t meet for a long time during the worst of Covid, and there were other distractions.

The photos which I used for this painting were taken in Feb. 2017, at the opening of the “Garden of Unearthly Delights”, part of the Fringe Festival. It was a wonderful, family-oriented evening, with  free samples of Fringe acts in the tents to encourage sales, fireworks, a band on stage to entertain, plentiful portable seating, and huge balloons to entertain children and adults. It was one of those times when people naturally spoke to strangers, a perfect community event.

This painting was intended as a preliminary sketch for a larger painting, but I became so immersed in detail that it took a very long time, so I deferred the big painting. But the happy memory of that evening will drive me to complete that large painting.

I tried visiting the event a few years later, but the close friend of that earlier time was no longer up to a long evening outdoors, and there was no free entertainment to attract families. I think the Garden had changed in style, it had solid support, it was more commercial in style, with restrictions on entry to limit the size of the crowds.

The northern section of the long-overdue Adelaide freeway was called the Torrens to Torrens project — it extended from Torrens Road at the northern end, to the Torrens River, and it involved the demolition of many houses and community buildings in its path.

One woman (Liz) from my Thursday painting group, who lived in the area, decided to hold an exhibition of paintings, photographs and other artworks of the project in her local library at Hindmarsh. She encouraged members of our group to visit the project and contribute to the display, and this was my painting for the exhibition.

Although I bought the prepared canvas from a reputable art shop, I found the timbers used had not been properly cured, and it twisted out of shape while I was doing the painting. But Liz took it to a framer who fixed it for a reasonable price that I was happy to pay.