The View from the top : Painting inside the Harbour Control Tower.
Usually I don't paint in the control room at the very top, but 2 flights of stairs further down in the amenities rooms - the lunchroom, the passageway next to the toilets, the lobby near the lifts and the locker room. It is extremely narrow there and it is hard to work as I am very short (same height as Toulouse-Lautrec - 5'1" I am so short that when I stand outside waiting for the guys to press the buzzer to let me in, the first few times they didn't see me as the security camera was too high up and I had to stand further away from it to be seen!) and the windows are quite high up.
Usually I don't paint in the control room at the very top, but 2 flights of stairs further down in the amenities rooms - the lunchroom, the passageway next to the toilets, the lobby near the lifts and the locker room. It is extremely narrow there and it is hard to work as I am very short (same height as Toulouse-Lautrec - 5'1" I am so short that when I stand outside waiting for the guys to press the buzzer to let me in, the first few times they didn't see me as the security camera was too high up and I had to stand further away from it to be seen!) and the windows are quite high up.
In the Harbour Control Tower I often work in gouache as it doesn't dry as quickly as it would outdoors, and I have access to water. With gouache, it helps to use a waterspray on the palette to keep the colours from drying out and also on your paper to work 'wet-in-wet' for sea and sky effects.
Each of the 'rooms' in the amenities floor has 2 windows. The lobby outside the lift has views of the Opera House, the approach to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Rocks. The lunchroom boasts the classic view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Walsh Bay Wharves from the east window and a panorama of the North Sydney skyline from the western. On either side of the toilets are the windows with the best view of Goat Island and Balmain, while the locker room has the vantage points for Pyrmont to the west and the Hungry Mile, Miller's Point and Observatory Hill to the east; bringing the viewer full circle back to where they started. There is a bar fridge in the eastern end of the locker room which I find useful to rest my palette on.
This is the view from the east window in the lobby: | ||||||
| 'The Rocks from Harbour Control Tower 1' 2006 gouache on paper 45 x 31cm SOLD | |
The view from the locker room:
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| "The Hungry Mile from the Harbour Control Tower 2" 2008 gouache on paper 101 x 76cm |
Darling Harbour and the Australian National Maritime Museum, Pyrmont is in the background of this painting. This was painted in early 2008, not long after the wharf closed for shipping. If you look very closely, the southern most wharf, Wharf 6, which was used for maintenance by Patrick Corporation, is just beginning to be demolished.
The View from the wharf
The View from the wharf
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| 'Sydney Harbour Control Tower and Clyne reserve' 2007 oil painting on canvas 46 x 36 cm SOLD |
A full view of the gorgeous sandstone escarpment under the Tower. The tiny park at its feet is called 'Clyne Reserve', and the local residents know it well as a great vantage point to observe the now infrequently passing shipping, or to pack a picnic and watch the New Year's Eve Fireworks.
