A Week in the Wetlands

Saturday, 11 October 2014, 10 am

Came home a couple of days ago from an expedition to the Macquarie Marshes and Warren in central NSW – 2000 km round trip.

It was organised by Bill Phillips and his organization RiverSmart to raise the profile of the wetlands in that area. Several artists and students were involved, mainly the Australian Plein Air Group, a group of traditional plein air oil painters. Works were exhibited in an ancient building in town as they were finished.

I adopted the strategy of getting up when aroused by the galah alarm to capture the pre-dawn and early raking light, then lazing under a tree for the rest of the day to avoid the heat in the high 30’s. The others got up a bit later and worked through the worst of it. Mad dogs, Englishmen and plein air painters……

My first work was started at 5.30 am in the Tiger Bay Wetlands, a small patch of artificially maintained wetland on the outskirts of Warren. Lots of birds.

“Tiger Bay Wetlands #1”

“Tiger Bay Wetlands #2”

After this, I did some exploring to find suitable subjects for the next day. Dawn found me at Raby horse stud, about 20 km north of Warren. Love a bit of signage.

“Raby”

Then back towards town a few kilometres, to the Quinines Reserve to have a go at a bend in the Macquarie River. Quite a tangle of debris and it took a couple of hours to resolve its structure into something comprehensible.

“Bent”

Then back to Warren to have a go at the bridge below the downstream town weir. It was warming up and I wanted to get this one finished before I melted.

Struck me as funny how all these gubbas love to name structures after themselves, hence the title. Kind of like dogs marking their territory.

“Jack's Bridge from Brian's Weir”

Next day I was up before 5 and off to the Marshes and Willie Retreat, where I arrived about 7. There was no one about apart from an emu, who rifled through the back of my ute, and a couple of goats who showed me around. The goats took the lead and the emu followed.

After finding Myra, a sprightly host in her mid eighties, I found a spot to camp and a shady tree to do this –

” Willie Woodlands”

Stylisation creeping in. That night I did the scene around the campfire. Annie and Gloria moved around a bit and were drawn in several positions.

“2 Annie's, 3 Gloria's”

Dawn the next day found me 20 km east of Willie at the bird observation platform on the Quambone road. Lots of birds, including a mob of spoonbills in the distance. A fair bit of water around, unlike the last time I’d been at this spot eight years ago. The rest of the artists turned up when I was half way through this one.

“Big Terrigal Ck.”

I drove on another 10 km to Wilgara, a property owned by Eric and Carollyn Fisher. I’d drawn Eric’s portrait for the ‘Dying Darling’ project and wanted to catch up with him while I was in the area. Turns out Eric had sold the property and was moving out before Christmas.

Carollyn fed and watered me while we waited for Eric, who turned up eventually and directed me to a small creek behind the house. It was hot and I was looking for some shade, and that’s exactly what I drew. I was taken by the tree shadow on the milky tea-coloured pool and when I set my panel down noticed that the shadow fell on to it, so I traced that instead. So this is literally a rendition of the shade of a coolibah tree on my panel –

“The Shade of a Coolibah Tree”

That was enough sweating for one day.

Dragged the pastels out and had a crack at the dawn next morning –

“Willie Sunrise”

Then it was off to an appointment with National Parks at Halls Block in the Macquarie Marshes proper. I was directed to an area along the banks of the main channel. It was a bit wet and spectacularly colourful, with red azoller weed (native) on the water, rich green verbage and bright yellow swamp buttercups. Some big redgums, too.

“Halls Block - Main Channel”

“Halls Block Regrowth”

That night did a quick nocturne of the Willie Retreat building (for paying guests) itself. Couldn’t interest anyone else in joining in. Most artists don’t think that night-time scenes are a suitable source of inspiration. What I like about them (apart from the depths and subtleties of night light) is the way detail disappears and the composition simplifies.

“Willie Retreat Nocturne”

Next morning caught the Telstra tower in the pre-dawn light. Bronwen had pointed it out to me the day before as the sort of thing I’d draw and I’d told her I’d already noticed it. Wanted to capture it before dawn, when its lights were still on.

I had an alternative title, ‘Facebook Friend’, prompted by all the Facebook activity around the campfire the previous evening (‘I’ll friend you, will you friend me?’). Figured there wouldn’t be any of that Facebook friending without the tower, but decided to go with Bronwen in the end.

“One for Bronwen”

I moved on from the profane to the sacred, returning to Hall’s Block. I decided to draw a patch of swamp buttercups with my last large panel, being a bit bored with redgums.

I sketched in the darks first and did the drawing with a kneadable erasor. Does it for me. A few bits of nardoo in there as well.

“Swamp Buttercups”

I headed back to Warren and waited for the closing exhibition the next day. I went over to the relocated church, which was to become the new Wetlands Centre, with Bronwen, the next morning.

“The Church of St. Bill the Innocent, with Blue Gum, Warren”

As a postscript, came across this bloke on the way home, on the outskirts of Glen Innes. He was leading his horse (trotter/drafthorse cross) home, after a day working cattle.

What a portrait subject! Note his working dog curled up at his feet.