Plein air it is. It's week 3 of my 3 month intensive residency in my studio ...

It’s week 3 of my 3 months intensive residency in my studio.  Some more paintings are up on the studio walls, some a work in progress on the easel and rough sketches have been made for more works to come. This week Writer Tracy Sorensen came to my studio.  Currently working on her PhD she has taken a moment to the side to create the essay for the catalogue for my upcoming ‘Wild’ exhibition.  So it was time to talk and think and re-think – what’s it all about? I’ll come back to that later. More art supplies were purchased – ouch again, and a planning meeting was had at Tablelands Artists Cooperative Gallery. They are a good bunch. I’ve said goodbye and missed instantly my family as they set off ahead of me on our annual camping trip with great friends. This week I’ve thought about artist’s locally – including the luscious application of paint and plein air work of Blue Mountains artist Robert Malherbe http://www.robertmalherbe.com/ and with this thought, I have been inspired to get out of the studio (just metres away really).  So I didn’t just walk but I worked in the bushland surrounds, immersed in the long and speckled shadows from the afternoon sun highlighting the pealing reds, pinks, oranges, yellows, blues and greys of the Blakely’s red gums in these here parts.  Nim the critic wasn’t too impressed with my take and left the scene. I’m not too sure I’m all that impressed either – I got messy and they got muddy, but here’s a pic of this in-situ action … Not every day is a winner. I think I’ll revisit these two in the studio. And I started this blog page (I never envisaged that I’d be a blogger) to my website www.nicmasonartist.com for these weekly happenings, it’s mostly just to keep me on track, but you’re welcome to drop by.