WEST TO WINTON

Posted on June 29, 2022 by splashingpaint

A workshop in Blackall and another spread between Longreach and Winton saw us load up the truck and head off to central Queensland for six weeks. The country was incredibly green after all the rain and flooding. Many roads were still closed and venturing off the bitumen was a slippery, muddy exercise.

Silos on the road to Roma

This old pub at Wallumbilla looks less than inviting soaked in rain and surrounded by mud, but the local graziers couldn’t be happier.

Retirement green confusion – Morvan.

Early morning – Morven waterhole

Disused railway crane – Morven

Camping out of Tambo was a little tricky – where there wasn’t grass there was thick, sticky mud.

Sunrise through a layer of fog, Tambo

Union Hotel Blackall – still sells cold beer, but not much else

The weekly cattle sale in Blackall saw some fat’ healthy cattle, happy sellers and not so happy re-stockers.

Lisa and Bruce, from one of the big sheep stations out of Blackall, invited us out to see the end of the shearing.

These guys work flat out, fired up by loud, fast music, high demand and and a competitive attitude.

Shearing their way through several thousand sheep is hard, back breaking work.

Ancient Technology from the Isisford Picture Theatre.

Drowned caravans camped in the Barcoo River, Isisford. Ignore the locals at your peril.

An empty paddock next to the old Langenbaker House in Ilfracombe made a great place to paint

DC3 at the Qantas Museum Longreach

Retired Catalina at the Qantas Museum

Before the workshop in Winton, Dianne and I went out to the clay pans at Bladensburg to find a painting location

Willy Mar’s old market garden store, Winton

We painted Willy Mar’s old truck (now up on blocks next to his old market garden and store.

We spent a morning in the old Bladensburg woolshed painting the ancient wool press.

This was the demonstration painting I did. (Couldn’t help using Phthalo Green!)

Looking west towards Winton – an unusual sea of lush, green grass

At the Winton Dinosaur Centre, volunteers work tirelessly separating rock from fossil to reconstruct the skeletons of dinosaurs.

After the Winton workshop Dianne and I headed back out to Bladensburg to camp and watch the sun go down.

Heading east, we found this lake with amazing sunsets and fantastic birdlife.

Our camp, just visible from the top of a nearby hill

Sunset one side, full moon the other.

FLINDERS RANGES WORKSHOP

Posted on May 9, 2021 by splashingpaint

We left Arkaroola and headed down to Adelaide, exploring Wilpena, the southern Flinders and Burra, on the way. Our truck was parked in secure parking for the two weeks of the workshop. We spent a night in Adelaide, then we joined the painting group and travelled back up to Wilpena Pound Resort by coach for our first 5 days of the workshop.

The Flinders Ranges are a great place to paint – interesting buildings, spectacular gorges and a backdrop of magnificent purple mountains.

Here we painted the old Wilpena Station store where all the stations provisions were secured back in the 1800’s

This old door has been patched and repaired over the years, keeping the blacksmiths cottage secure for over a hundred years.

We painted the stony outcrops surrounding the Aroona Valley before going down into the Brachina Gorge to explore the rocks and pools

Brachina Gorge

We had two great indigenous guides to show us around the Brachina Gorge area. They took us to see these ancient rock engravings with all sorts of interesting details.

Leaving The Flinders, we moved on down to Burra, a beautiful little town with magnificent stone buildings built in the boom days of the towns copper mine in the 1800’s. We spent a few days in Burra exploring the area and painting.

Burra Main Street.

South Australia has a lot of old abandoned railway stations, some with old rolling stock, some with wheat silos and most of them built beautifully from local stone

One of our group has explored all the old abandoned stations in the lower Finders. He got permission from the owners of this beautiful old station for us to visit.

We spent a morning painting the old Farrell Flat Station.

Skillogalee Vineyard made a good painting destination. We sampled their wines, had a fabulous meal and painted in the vineyard garden – What a great day.

Lunch on the Skillogalee verandah.

Our last couple of days were spent in Hahndorf in the Adelaide hills. We visited The Cedars – the home and studio of Hans Heysen.

A beautiful studio with huge, frosted, south facing windows and a large open fireplace

We were lucky to have “The Two Marks” on board as we travelled around South Australia. Mark One , the driver, had a terrific knowledge of the area and kept us entertained and informed with some great stories. Mark Two, a local watercolourist and long time traveller through the region led us to some great painting locations we would have otherwise missed.

The passing vista of old abandoned buildings, big skies and bare rolling hills is unique to South Australia and is something that keeps drawing us back to this part of the country.

ON TO FLORIDA

Posted on October 2, 2019 by splashingpaint

Our workshop at Dillmans was a lot of fun – catching up with old friends and meeting new people. We were a couple of weeks early for the full Fall colors, but White Sand Lake is spectacular any time.

Great View from our cabin on the lake

Sandhill Crane – Dillmans

From Dillmans we headed over to Boone, North Carolina to meet “Cheap Joe” Miller – What a great guy – A real gentleman and character, the only person I know that can play Pachelbells Canon on a specially tuned wooden stick

Rocking Chairs on Cheap Joes Studio Verandah

Cheap Joe’s Workshop Studio is fantastic – lots of space, great light and a big overhead screen and camera

Beautiful old wooden Barn near Todd NC

Todd General Store and Bakery, near Boone NC

Bob and Tom – Irish Pub, Bradenton FL

Great to catch up with Joe Costanza in Florida – Crazy sense of humour and lots of great stories

Curious Squirrel

Gulf backwater near Mobile AL

Tupelo Honey

Old fish processing building as the sun rises – Apalachicola FL

Fishing Floats

Sad to see the Hurricane damage around the Gulf of Mexico. This, once grand, building in Apalachicola has an optimistic ‘Opening Soon’ sign, that appears to have been in place for quite a while

Old Jetty – Cedar Key

Cedar Key – Bar on the water as the sun goes down

Cedar Key

Roseate Spoonbills – Cedar Key

Pink Ibis

Young Herron

Egret

LONG DUSTY ROADS

Posted on June 28, 2019 by splashingpaint

All Text and Images © John Lovett 2019

After 660 kms of dusty corrugations down the Gibb River Road, we enjoyed a brief stretch of bitumen across to Halls Creek. An overnight stop and we were off down the Tanami Road to Alice Springs. The Tanami Road is 1100kms of mostly well graded dirt with some patches of bulldust and rough corrugations. The Aboriginal Communities of Billiluna and Yuendumu sell expensive diesel.

After stocking up in Alice Springs, we spent a couple of days in the Eastern MacDonnell’s before heading East along the Plenty Highway – a long strip of corrugated dirt that cuts straight across the Northern Territory into Queensland

Freshwater Crocs are thriving at (an almost dry) Windjana Gorge

The Tanami Road cuts through the Tanami Desert from Halls Creek WA to Alice Springs NT

We spent a night at Wolf Creek Crater – Dianne, having not seen the movie, was pretty relaxed about camping there under a full moon, I had a bad nights sleep with a wheel brace under my pillow.

Believe it or not, this piece of corrugated iron architecture was on wheels.

Tanami Roadtrain

Finches at a rare waterhole along the Tanami.

Billiluna Community

Billiluna Footy Field – all dust and rocks

Can’t drive past a wrecked car without stopping to take a photo. This one was so good we camped the night to get the early morning sun.

Wedgetail enjoying breakfast.

After stocking up in Alice Springs, we headed out to the Eastern MacDonnell’s for some pretty spectacular walks.

Not far down the Plenty Highway we came across this rolled Toyota. It must have been there a couple of days because all the wheels were gone. Judging by the scattered debris, it must have been some Japanese Tourists heading off on an adventure.

The white dot in the middle is our camp . Huge amounts of nothing through the middle of the Northern Territory, but when you stop and look around the scenery can be spectacular.

Budgerigars

Stockmen at Tobermorey Station

Tobermorey Horse Breaker

Tobermorey Sunset

Red dust

Crossing into Queensland, the Plenty turns into the Donohue. This was the smoothest dirt road we encountered

Donkeys watching Humans come to a sudden halt in a big cloud of dust.

ARGENTINA

Posted on March 8, 2019 by splashingpaint

From the Falkland Islands we made our way to Argentina, stopping first in Montevideo, Uruguay, then ending our cruise in Buenos Aries. After the workshop finished, Dianne and I stayed on in Buenos Aires for a few days to explore the city.

© John Lovett 2019 — Montevideo Doorway – Orange Bike

FALKLAND ISLANDS

Posted on March 6, 2019 by splashingpaint

After a second smooth crossing of Drake Passage, we stopped for a day at Stanley in the Falkland Islands. The islands are low, treeless and windswept. The older architecture in Stanley is interesting. Apart from a few buildings made of brick or stone, most construction is of timber and corrugated iron. The design of the buildings are still traditionally British – even down to the picket fences, but the unusual materials take some getting used to. An attempt to make the place feel like home I guess, but they miss out on that balmy British weather!

There are many of these old Nissin Huts, left over from various wars. All the buildings have a flaking, rusty patina caused by the constant freezing and thawing and the continuous howling wind.

An interesting graveyard for wooden boats at the end of Stanley Harbour.

Young penguin hiding in a burrow above the beach

Mum and Dad socialising on the beach

No one climbs through the fences

Male Upland Goose – common on the islands

Brand new Landrovers waiting delivery

Anchorage for fair weather sailers.

The Falklands had a very British feel – friendly British accents, Landrovers everywhere, Pubs serving Ale and money bearing pictures of the Queen.

CHILE

Posted on February 25, 2019 by splashingpaint

Flying over the Andes into Santiago is an impressive end to a long flight from Sydney.
We spent a couple of days in Santiago, exploring the city and nearby mountains before boarding the Zaandam for a painting workshop down the Chilean coast, down to the Antarctic Peninsular then back up the East Coast of South America to Buenos Aires.

The Andes from our hotel window

Giant Condors from a ski resort above Santiago

Ski Resort – minus snow

The port area of Santiago has some interesting businesses, colorful shops and unattractive vessels.

Mountains of containers dwarf the local fishing boats

Leaving Santiago and heading south took us through interesting country under the backdrop of the Andes.

Stilt houses in Castro on the island of Chiloe

Castro – beautiful wooden boat takes shape.

Empanadas

Fishing Boats – Castro

Patagonian farm shed

Rio Simpson

Rock walls – Rio Simpson, Patagonia

As we headed south the country became less inhabited, the mountains higher and the temperature cooler. The most common habitation was fish farming settlements.

Ice started to appear in the water and we began to see glaciers.

Some ships never made it out of the labyrinth of channels through the fjords

Carefully stacked containers on the docks at Punta Arenas

Southern Chile is cold, wet, salty and windy – buildings tend to be functional rather than decorative.

Punta Arenas

Shivering Cormorants

Replica of Shackleton’s modified dingy that took him and five of his men, through mountainous seas, from Antarctica to South Georgia Island

Ushuaia – the most southern town in the world

Ushuaia’s isolation meant that building materials were limited to what could be easily transported. They did some fancy construction with corrugated iron.

The pan America Highway starts in Alaska and ends in Ushuaia, where this tiny Citroen had just arrived, in the process of transporting a family of three 200,000kms around the world.

Mt Olivia behind Ushuaia

Tierra del Fuego lighthouse

Splashing Paint

Paintings, photograph's and thoughts of a wandering artist

Category Archives: Architecture

WEST TO WINTON

FLINDERS RANGES WORKSHOP

ON TO FLORIDA

LONG DUSTY ROADS

ARGENTINA

FALKLAND ISLANDS

CHILE

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