Storm warning, Goat Island

I haven't been back to my studio at Moore's Wharf for over a year now.

Last year was a bit of a nightmare, as my mum became very ill and
was in and out of hospital throughout most of 2012.
I was only able to go out painting occasionally, and when I was able to, I painted at Rozelle, Eveleigh or Pyrmont, rather than at Barangaroo.
I posted some of these on my Industrial Revelation blog.
It's difficult enough to keep posting on one blog, almost impossible to cope with two.
I finally returned last Friday, and started a large panorama of Goat Island from the knuckle of the wharf.

Work in progress -

This was how the painting looked at 10.30am

'Goat Island from Moore's Wharf' 2013 

oil on canvas 45 x 92cm

Enquiries about this painting :

info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

I probably hadn't picked the best day to do so.
The sky looked like a purple bruise.
But I tried to do as much painting as I could before the inevitable storm.

Work in progress -

This was how the painting looked at 11.58am

'Goat Island from Moore's Wharf' 2013 

oil on canvas 45 x 92cm

Enquiries about this painting :

info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

The yellow buoys and boom contrasted well with the sullen sky and choppy slate grey sea.
The boom is there to prevent pollution by debris from the excavation of sandstone blocks for the Barangaroo Headland Park next door to Moore's Wharf.

Work in progress -

This was how the painting looked at 11.58am

'Goat Island from Moore's Wharf' 2013 

oil on canvas 45 x 92cm

Enquiries about this painting :

info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

Fortunately the blokes soon moved their car so I could see the little hut at the far left hand edge of Goat Island. I didn't want to move from my sheltered nook behind the pallets as there was obviously very little time left before the storm.
Just after 3pm a bolt of lightning struck in the distance.
The thunder was so loud that it sounded like a cannon had been fired.
By the time I had packed up all my paints and brushes I was soaked.

'Goat Island from Moore's Wharf' 2013 

oil on canvas 45 x 92cm

Enquiries about this painting :

info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

My next solo exhibition "From the Hungry Mile to Barangaroo" will be held from 1st - 24th March 2013 at the Frances Keevil Gallery, Bay Village, 28-34 Cross Street Double Bay, NSW 2028, as their signature event for Art Month.

Transmogrify

'Transmogrify'  is a combination of 'transmigrate,' (to pass from one body into another) and 'modify,(to change the properties, form, or function of )

To transform into some other person or thing, as by magic; convert or transform in general.
To completely alter the form of.

Starting painting "Panorama of Moore's Wharf and ships" oil on canvas 25 x 152cm

This canvas was started on 2 August 2011, but has been through quite a number of permutations and still isn't finished. I wanted a record of the hidden side, the working side of this lovely heritage sandstone building, and I kept changing my mind about what to include or leave out. So buildings, boats and trucks got painted in and out dozens of times.

It's been a wrestling match between me, the surroundings, the workers and the canvas!

This is the original idea for the composition.

The perspective was complex and challenging, even before people started to move things around.

Then 'Fast Eddy' parked his truck in front of the blue container...
The bottom right hand corner of the canvas looked a little empty anyway, so I started to paint the truck.

Then the truck left before I had a chance to finish painting it.
'Fast Eddy' didn't know exactly when he'd be back, or whether he'd be with or without his truck or where he'd park it. So I scraped the truck off with a razor blade, to remove the lumps and bumps and give a good surface for the next application of paint. A frustrating day spent scraping off paint and re-applying it without making the painting any better.
The lone fisherman on the end of Wharf 8/9, Walsh Bay Wharves opposite called out to me as he left "Skunked?"
"What?!" I called back. There were a few little fish in the water, but no skunks. I wondered if he was referring to me and what he meant by it. I was unsure if I should resent it or take it as a compliment.
Apparently to be "skunked" is to go home without catching at least one fish!
No, I didn't "catch any fish" that day. However by pulling this painting apart and putting it back together again I've learnt a lot about perspective problems, plein air painting, the wharf and how it works.

The truck has been excised and I can now turn my attention to painting the 'Shirley Smith'.

The brilliant red and yellow of the 'Shirley Smith' is a delight to paint against the cobalt blue sky.

However, the format of this canvas is an extreme horizontal panorama, and now the brilliance of 'Shirley' threatens to overpower everything else in the painting.

I increase the size of the Moore's Wharf building to balance the composition.

It still needs some tweaking. I've added a little orange pilot boat, the "Port Jackson" between the crane and Moore's Wharf.

This is a small oil study from another angle of the "Port Jackson" being lifted back into the water after the blokes had finished cleaning her. I was made to move my position, as I would have been in the way.

However, the bottom right hand corner still looks too empty to balance the composition...

Fortunately 'Fast Eddy' brought another truck back, and someone obligingly left the little yellow forklift in front of the north end of Moore's Wharf. Now there might be enough red and yellow on the right hand side of the painting to balance the 'Shirley Smith'.

This painting has turned into a monster, eating my paint and my precious time.

I've no idea whether I'll ever be able to finish it, but it's been an ever changing record of everything that has happened on the wharf over the last couple of months.

Related posts

Sitzkrieg

View from the ivory tower

"May close without warning" My Solo Exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery

Bacon and Eggs in Miller's Point

Power Base - Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station

Sitzkrieg

1. A stalemate
2. Warfare marked by a lack of aggression or progress.
3. inaction, doing little or nothing
4. phoney war

Coined on the model of blitzkrieg : German Sitz, act of sitting; see sitz bath + German Krieg, war.
For almost a year there has been an eerie paralysis at Barangaroo. After the last wharf was demolished, the excavators went home.
Nothing much has been happening. Just waiting.
Waiting for court challenges to be resolved, waiting for a change of government, waiting for a "short, sharp" review of the project.
Now the phoney war is over.
The calm before the storm has ended.
The demolition has finished. Barangaroo has begun.
LendLease has started deep excavation at the southern end.The excavators have reawakened from their hibernation, and the first crane has arrived.

At the northern end, a ziggurat of sandstone blocks has appeared. Sheets of black plastic cover the holes in the ground from where they have been extracted. The quantity of high quality yellowblock here could refurbish every heritage sandstone building from Macquarie Street to Sydney University, but that won't be its fate. It is doomed to become the Barangaroo Headland Park.

Quarrying beautiful yellowblock sandstone, only to cover it with grass or throw it in the water - it's a crying shame.

North Barangaroo Headland Park from my studio in the loft at Moore's Wharf

Painting of "North Barangaroo Headland Park from my studio in the loft at Moore's Wharf "31 x 61cm oil on canvas 2011

"The North Barangaroo Headland Park painted from my studio in the loft at Moore's Wharf "31 x 61cm oil on canvas 2011

And the sinister blue border line wiggles ever closer to Moore's Wharf, home of Sydney Ports Corporation's Emergency Response Tugs.

Related posts

"May close without warning" My Solo Exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery

Cut off

1. To remove via cutting.
2. To isolate or remove from contact
3. To end abruptly.
4. A designated limit beyond which something cannot function or must be terminated
5.  Break a small piece off from

At 4pm last Friday afternoon, I arrived back at Moore's Wharf after a day spent putting the finishing touches on my enormous painting of White Bay Power Station.
I saw a crane through the trees of Clyne Reserve, the pocket hankerchief size park next to the Sydney Harbour Control Tower.
The men in the workbox were from Telstra. They were removing Telstra's communications equipment from the strange little "belt" around the waistline of the Tower.
There is something symbolic about the phones being cut off in a building devoted to communications. 

"Sydney Harbour Control Tower and Clyne reserve" 2007 oil painting on canvas 46 x 36 cm SOLD

This is the Tower in earlier days when East Darling Harbour Wharves were still operational.
I have been told that everything has to be stripped out of there by the end of September.

The Barangaroo Development Corporation want to buy it, if they haven't already done so.
The prospect of its demolition inches ever closer.
Won't be long now.
I wonder if it will last until the opening of my exhibition?
I'll be showing other Barangaroo paintings from the 11th -30th October 2011 in my solo exhibition "May close without warning" at the Frances Keevil Gallery,Bay Village, 28-34 Cross St, Double Bay 2028.

Enquiries : info@franceskeevilart.com.au
"Sydney Harbour Control Tower is looking at a fall"
Henry Budd: The Daily Telegraph August 05, 2011

Related articles

• Power Base - Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station - Part 2 (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• White Bay Power Station : Inside Out (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• Power House (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• View from the ivory tower (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Bacon and Eggs in Miller's Point (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)

Painting Miller's Point from the top of Harbour Control Tower New Year's Eve 2010- Part 4:Through a glass darkly

Painting on New Year's Eve 2010 from Amenities Level at the top of the Sydney Port's Harbour Control Tower.

Painting on New Year's Eve 2010 from Amenities Level

at the top of the Sydney Port's Harbour Control Tower

Painting of Barangaroo at sunset, waiting for the fireworks.

People have gathered on the 'knuckle' of North Barangaroo to see the fireworks. When this area was still an operational port, the wharfies and their families used to sit here and have a picnic outside the now demolished Shed 3.

The parade of tall ships and other Heritage Fleet vessels decked out in fairy lights, sailing the length of Sydney Harbour, is my favourite part of the whole celebration.

Self Portrait with painting of Sydney Heritage Fleet with fairy lights.
One of my traditions is to paint the fireworks on New Year's Eve and other major celebrations from the vantage point of the top of the Sydney Ports Corporation's Harbour Control Tower.
This may be for the last time.
There are no guarantees that this Tower will have any place in the redevelopment of Barangaroo. If it is to be retained, what function will it serve?
The interior spaces of both the amenities floor, where I paint, and the top floor, where the port operations are carried out, are very snug, to say the least. There isn't much room. The Tower is a magnificent observation post with breath-taking 360 degree panoramic Sydney Harbour views, but the number of people that could visit at any one time would be severely limited. I am worried that the Tower would be seen as being not economically viable to maintain in the new Barangaroo.
It could be demolished at any time after April 2011, which is when all the port operations will be finally transferred to Port Botany. Even if it is not immediately demolished, it will be inaccessible for a couple of years while major earthworks will be disrupting the Northern end of the Barangaroo Headland. The sandstone escarpment will be buried in earth to provide a slope down from Merriman St to the new shore of the Barangaroo Headland Park. I wonder how the inhabitants of the quaint little terraces in Merriman St will cope? They are a stoic, laid back bunch, but these changes will be traumatic.

Happy New Year!

My exhibition: "From the Hungry Mile to Barangaroo"

My exhibition: "From the Hungry Mile to Barangaroo"
Foyer of LendLease 30,'The Bond',
30 Hickson Road, Millers Point

Paintings of Barangaroo at Sydney Open - 30, The Bond

From left to right:

easel on left: 

top : 'Relics from the Dead House 2' 2007 oil on canvas 91 x 61 cm

bottom left: "Hungry Dinosaurs" 2010 oil on canvas 36 x 46 cm 

bottom right: "Grabber, Muncher,Ripper" 2010 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm

easel in centre: 
top: "I saw the number '8' in red"   2010 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
centre: :"Red Square (Arrivals Hall) 2010 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
bottom left: "The drill rig" 2010 oil on canvas 36 x 36cm
bottom right: "Red Square" 2010 oil on canvas 36 x 36cm

easel on right:

top left:"8 (ate)"  2010 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
top right: "Dig it! (The archaeologists)"   2010 oil on canvas 31 x 15cm
centre: "A work in progress" 2010 oil on canvas 91 x 122cm (Unfinished)
bottom left: "The last gantry"  2010 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
bottom right: "Pump it! (The 'Watertank')" 2010 oil on canvas 31 x 41cm

easel on left:
above: "The 'Southern Cross' (with Robbie and forklift)" 2010 oil on canvas 31 x 103 cm

centre : 'The working port' 2007 oil on canvas 100 x 122 cm

easel in centre: 
top left: "The tug "Karoo""   2008 oil on canvas 20 x 25cm
top right: :"The tug "Woona" 2008 oil on canvas 20 x 25cm
below: "The 'Tamerlane' after rain" 2005 oil on canvas 75 x 100cm

easel on right:
top :"2 cranes"  2006 oil on canvas 41 x 51cm
below: "Boat Lift"   2007 oil on canvas 100 x 122cm


 A small selection of my paintings of the East Darling Harbour Wharves and their transformation into the Barangaroo precinct were exhibited for one day only in the foyer of the LendLease Headquarters 30, The Bond directly opposite the Barangaroo site itself. Here they are displayed in front of the spectacular escarpment wall of yellowblock sandstone, catching the dying embers of the afternoon sun. 
On the same day a selection of my Pyrmont paintings were also exhibited in the foyer of 'Workplace6', headquarters of Google, and 2 of Paul Signorelli's new restaurants, 'Biaggio' and 'Gastronomia'.
I borrowed the "A" frame easels from John Sweaney of ASMA (The Australian Society of Marine Artists) and put my entire black ankle sock collection on their feet to prevent the floor being scratched!

easel on left:

top : 'Relics from the Dead House 2' 2007 oil on canvas 91 x 61 cm

bottom left: "Hungry Dinosaurs" 2010 oil on canvas 36 x 46 cm 

bottom right: "Grabber, Muncher,Ripper" 2010 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm

 easel in centre:
top: "I saw the number '8' in red"   2010 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
centre: :"Red Square (Arrivals Hall) 2010 oil on canvas 61 x 183cm
bottom left: "The drill rig" 2010 oil on canvas 36 x 36cm
bottom right: "Red Square" 2010 oil on canvas 36 x 36cm


easel on right:
top left:"8 (ate)"  2010 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
top right: "Dig it! (The archaeologists)"   2010 oil on canvas 31 x 15cm
centre: "A work in progress" 2010 oil on canvas 91 x 122cm (Unfinished)
bottom left: "The last gantry"  2010 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
bottom right: "Pump it! (The 'Watertank')" 2010 oil on canvas 31 x 41cm


People could take a short break from all the strenuous exploration of the city's architectural highlights and even have a coffee and a bite to eat in the welcoming leather sofas of the Bond's foyer. Some of them were even interested in the paintings!

Before and After


easel on left:
top left:"8 (ate)"  2010 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
top right: "Dig it! (The archaeologists)"   2010 oil on canvas 31 x 15cm
centre: "A work in progress" 2010 oil on canvas 91 x 122cm (Unfinished)
bottom left: "The last gantry"  2010 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
bottom right: "Pump it! (The 'Watertank')" 2010 oil on canvas 31 x 41cm

easel on right:
top:"The empty wharf"  2007 oil on canvas 31 x 61cm

centre: "The empty wharf"  2007 oil on canvas 100 x 122cm (Unfinished)
bottom: "Power Base"  2010 oil on canvas 36 x 46cm

I've contrasted paintings of the still intact wharf buildings, painted just after the stevedores left with images of their demolition




easel on left:

above: "The 'Southern Cross' (with Robbie and forklift)" 2010 oil on canvas 31 x 103 cm

centre : 'The working port' 2007 oil on canvas 100 x 122 cm

easel on right:
top left: "The tug "Karoo""   2008 oil on canvas 20 x 25cm
top right: :"The tug "Woona" 2008 oil on canvas 20 x 25cm
below: "The 'Tamerlane' after rain" 2005 oil on canvas 75 x 100cm


I enjoyed seeing how the glowing brilliance of the red Wallenius Wilhelmsen ships stood out against the shadows cast on the sandstone. 

            
above: "The 'Southern Cross' (with Robbie and forklift)" 2010 oil on canvas 31 x 103 cm

centre : 'The working port' 2007 oil on canvas 100 x 122 cm

 

Related posts

• Barangaroo : 'Grabber, Ripper, Muncher' (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Barangaroo : Terminal -The Artist's Studio (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Dig it, Pump it, Grab it, Munch it ! (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Eight (ate) (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Barangaroo : Red Square, the Drill Rig and a little archaeology (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• Brilliantly renovated and cut in half (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Barangaroo: I saw the number '8' in red... (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• The Archaeologists at Barangaroo (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• My exhibition at Sydney Open (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• My paintings at Sydney Open Part 1 (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)