“Artistic Endeavours In 2024”.
Here is an article written by Ross Paterson telling us what he has been up to this year. Please enjoy.
My approach to painting is that painting requires good intentions, suitable concepts, a committed approach, steady practice, good research and time spent fruitfully on each procedure to have continuing success. I have found that attititude, commitment and a dedicated approach has been necessary thoughout my painting career.
Ross creating a pastel of the “Tumut River”
Teaching.
As a follow up to a request from the New Zealand Watercolour Society to conduct watercolour workshops in Wellington this year, I enjoyed teaching 32 students in two three day sessions for artists from various parts of N.Z. The response and appreciation was certainly all very positive, from participants in both groups.
I recently received a request to teach and exhibit in China. Recently I also gave a pastel workshop during February in Marlo, Victoria. The workshop was a success and we enjoyed the camaraderie and response from a great group of artists. We covered a variety of topics using the enjoyable, messy and ‘painterly’ medium of soft pastel for the three days, with landscape and figurative themes as our primary inspiration.
After tutoring 3 pastel workshops last year, for the Pastel Societies of Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne, I am convinced of the apparent popularity of this medium throughout much of the country.
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Painting Landscape On Location This Year.
As a painter of light and mood in landscape, I have always painted on location to not only observe and utilise tonal values and colour accordingly, but also search for new ideas and concepts to avoid the feeling of staleness or “I have done a very similar thing previously”; the finishing impasto/technique follows in the studio. Only when I am happy with the result weeks later, do I consider the framing and presentation. I never assess a work immediately after completion.
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Recent Plein-Air Painting Trips.
1. Our annual paint-out in the Tumut region.
A number of professional painters mostly from Sydney, meet for a week of painting landscapes, some in watercolour, others oil, or like myself both, with some pastel as well. We specify the weather! Usually though, the end of April is great.
2. Grampians in early April.
This year I was given the honour of being the invited guest artist at The Cavendish Red Gum Festival (near Hamilton, Victoria). I was able to not only exhibit, but also get out and paint in the Victoria Valley. This region has always been very enticing, for a long time, attracting early landscape painters like Louis Buvelot, Arthur Streeton “Land of the Golden Fleece” 1927, and many others to this present day.
Recent Paintings.
Below are a few oil painting subjects that I am working on presently. Some work well on location, while others require further development. Quick oil sketches done on location can be used in the studio as a reference, if the right concept and feeling is there initially. The larger on-site paintings shown are 60 x 90cm and the smaller ones are 45 x60cm. Personal interpretation is also an important factor.
Early Light Strathbogies. (Oil, 60 x 90cm).
Tumut River. (Oil, 60 X 90cm).
Two Trees, Brungle. (Oil 45 x 60cm).
