Inspiration

I did a rough sketch with a reed pen and ink. Then I worked into it with oil pastel. I wanted to capture the scratchiness of Hobart, the choppy water and the sun on Mount Wellington.I liked the colours but it was a bit boring so I destroyed it by covered the whole painting with violet pigmented ink. Now it was obliterated, I set about trying to find it again by scraping into the ink with a palette knife sometimes carefully like a palaeontologist unearthing a fossil; sometimes vigorously attacking the paper to force it work. The painting re-emerged but it still didn’t have the movement and chaos that I wanted so I scribbled all over it with the reed pen and ink. Then I spent a long time just looking and occasionally, scraping, pasteling and inking, together with a good red wine.I like the colours and the marks and maybe it captures something….maybe….something.