Showing posts with label terrace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrace. Show all posts

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Painting Miller's Point from the top of Harbour Control Tower New Year's Eve 2010- Part 3 : Panorama


Painting Miller's Point from top of Harbour Tower.
A small study of the rooftops of the heritage Miller's Point terraces. This painting is still unfinished but is well underway, and has already helped me to sort out some potential problems with the large panorama.

'Miller's Point from the top of the Harbour Tower' 2010-11
oil painting on canvas 61 x 183cm
Painting Miller's Point from top of Harbour Tower. This is my painting for the late afternoon, with the shadows lengthening along the roads and carving strange shapes into the tin rooftops. I want the gold of the last rays of the setting sun to glint on the rooftops and warm the cold brick and tin. For this painting marks the end of an era for Miller's Point ; possibly for Sydney itself. Love it or hate it, things will never be the same.
I can see already that this painting is going to be a lot of hard work.
The previous small studies were to give me the courage to start this.
I have chosen a panorama format canvas for this composition, 3 times as long as it is high. The vista spans the Sydney Harbour Bridge, parts of the North Shore, Miller's Point, Walsh Bay Wharves, the Rocks, Observatory Hill,some of Sydney's CBD and Barangaroo.
It will be the quintessential Sydney Harbour painting; from the old Sydney to the new; from skyscrapers to dinky terraces; from pub to park to carpark;from road to wharf to sea.
From the sublime to the gorblimey: Sydney from top to bottom of the harbour.

Detail of 'Miller's Point from the top of the Harbour Tower'
2010-11 oil painting on canvas 61 x 183cm

Detail of 'Miller's Point from the top of the Harbour Tower'
2010-11 oil painting on canvas 61 x 183cm
A ramshackle row of terraces contrasts with the lumpen apartment blocks behind them.

Painting Miller's Point from the top of Harbour Control Tower New Year's Eve 2010- Part 1: Nice Rooftops

I arrived at the Harbour Control Tower very early for New Year's Eve - about 10am and left after 4am. It was a very long day and a night and a day up there.

A small study of the rooftops of Miller's Point.
Unfinished oil painting on canvas 25 x 20 cm

Painting Miller's Point from top of Harbour Tower.
Starting a new canvas. I'm going to paint a very large panorama of this area while I still can. The perspective is going to be very tricky so I'll try a few smaller works first.
I can't help thinking of a hapless overseas star being asked the inevitable question by some hack before they had even got off the plane - "So....What do you think of Australia?" The snappy answer to the stupid question was "Nice rooftops" I can't recall who it was (John Lennon?)

Comparing art with life. I'm standing on a chair to compare my painting with the view outside.



I had to stand on a chair to paint this work as the windows are a bit too high for me to see the terraces. I'm 5'1"- short, even for a woman.
Exactly the same height as Toulouse-Lautrec.

Work in progress " Miller's Point  and Walsh Bay Wharves
from top of the Harbour Control Tower "
2010 oil painting on canvas 36 x 46cm

In the afternoon I start another small canvas. A small study of the rooftops of the heritage Miller's Point terraces and the former Bond stores of the Walsh Bay Wharves. The roads curve towards the Opera House in the middle distance.