I’m heading to Europe in about ten days time and part of that trip will see me back here in the olive groves of our dear friends in Italy.
A kilometer outside of Montecchio in Umbria, it is a magical landscape and the challenge of painting the silvery light of olive trees will once again force me to get out the paints. This is from my last visit and aims to pick up the soft evening light.
The world may have changed and so may have I, but there’s a beautiful familiarity that greets me whenever I land here. Laughter, love and the past memories of previous visits.
I like the ability to abstract elements that relate and seemingly communicate with each other in an intimate way. And the idea that colour is an essential part of the work and how the ratio of its mass is relative to other colours in the arrangement.
I am planning to feature these in my next show at Working Dog gallery @workingdogprojects.art in August.
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1 Shifting Lines Acrylic on canvas 123 x 123cms
2 Rhythmic Patterns Acrylic on canvas 1115 x 115 cms
Driving across Tasmania, towards the Tarkine, on our recent @art.travel.adventures art workshop, this small group of trees really caught my eye, just outside of Irishtown near the north west coast. Simple angular shapes, dense foliage and the milky late afternoon light!
On a different note, I will be sending out a newsletter in the coming days with an update on the year so far, my upcoming 11 week trip to Europe and the dates for my next show in August. If you haven’t already signed up, why not click the link in my bio, visit my website and a box will pop up for you to join.
Glimpses of the Bass Strait, through the twisting trunks and branches.
From the woodland area on the Nut. Pademelon lurking in the bushes and an inquisitive Blue Tongue lizard crawling around our feet. And perfect weather too for our enthusiastic group of artists.
Art workshop fun above Stanley, Tasmania with @art.travel.adventures
Back up high on the Nut today in near perfect conditions. A quick scribble pad sketch (swipe to see) and then a work in gouache.
Interesting to interpret the detail from high up and I’m reminded of many of Richard Diebenkorn’s impressions from the air, as seen in some of his early works @diebenkornfoundation
I am inclined to make larger more abstract works of this particular piece, to make more of the geometric framework of the landscape.
A wonderful day with our @art.travel.adventures workshop group. This was high up on The Nut, a striking volcanic plug that rises dramatically above the seaside town of Stanley on Tasmania’s north-west coast. Sheer-sided and flat-topped, it stands about 143 metres (469 feet) above sea level and dominates the surrounding landscape.
This demonstrates the build of layers using gouache, from initial orange base to the final work and the scribble pad sketch which was my warm up drawing to start the process.
The sketch allows me to resolve the composition, establish how I will tackle darks and lights, the twisting trunks and branches and the playful nature of the shadows.
I let the lines pull toward a quiet point on the horizon. The shapes are built from simple blocks, reference to previous agricultural activity, and long diagonals that narrow as they move back. Curved bands soften the structure. The pale cream sky opens space all the way to the river, while the layered fields stretch distance forward and away.
Even on the plains, there is almost always a distant rise, a low headland, barely lifting itself from the horizon. I like how it appears to hover, breathing against the sky.
A flat landscape can feel lonely but it can also feel expansive, meditative an invitation rather than an absence.
After rain, the rutted farm tracks gather water like quiet mirrors, ribbons of light. Their edges soften and their reflections hold more sky than earth.
Telegraph poles do more than decorate the roadside. They teach the eye how to travel, providing a perfect perspective.
Memories of my time on the Monaro Plains, south of Sydney.
Three of my earlier tree works each painted loosely against a softening sky.
There’s something very appealing to me about the solitary tree and what it represents, resilience, self-reliance and the ability to endure hardship. And of course individuality.
Note how loose the shape is in the first painting, Melting The Darkness and the importance of the light passing through the canopy.
Once I have the shapes and composition resolved, I start to include some detail. Here I have gone as far as to start putting in the leaves. When it comes to charcoal I like to see a variance of line and tone, so the dark flecks of leaves really come into effect.
Also rubbing out, smudging and drawing over the top of earlier marks creates an interesting depth to the work.
I wait until the end to decide where to let the light shine and use an eraser to rub out areas of tone. Cut in to several slivers, the eraser is perfect for removing that pinpoint of light coming between branches.
So many of you get in touch with questions about drawing and painting trees, so I thought I’d devote this week to exploring some of the challenges they present. Trunks and canopies are endlessly fascinating subjects to study, and once shifting light and shadow enter the equation, the possibilities really open up.
I always begin with a charcoal sketch — thinking about composition, light and dark, and just how complex the subject needs to be. I never try to paint every leaf. Instead, I look for the underlying shapes and how they connect, overlap, and merge with one another.
Where is the light actually coming from, and does it support what I want to say? In this example, you can see how I changed the direction of the shadows partway through the process — moving them from a forward-facing light to one coming from the lower right.
Allow yourself that freedom to adjust as the painting develops.
I let the background colour show through, using it to suggest movement and energy in the final piece.
Look closely at the colours in front of you. Notice the pinks, yellows, and pale blues in the trunks — and don’t be afraid to exaggerate them. Colour is often more interesting than we first assume.
Keep checking in with yourself as you work. If something isn’t sitting right, paint it out and begin again. Nothing is precious at this stage.
Finally, photograph the work and view it small. It’s often the quickest way to see what’s working — and what isn’t.
Swipe back through to see the various stages. And reach out if you have any further questions.
Still immersed in the landscapes rhythms of geometry. This one is finished and framed.
My geometric paintings sit at the meeting point of intuition and structure. Shapes are used as anchors rather than rules, allowing colour, rhythm and spatial tension to emerge through response rather than planning.
The work grows out of a conversation with landscape and memory, where geometry becomes a way of editing experience; simplifying, compressing and distilling what is felt rather than what is seen. Balance and imbalance coexist, inviting the viewer to slow down and sense the quiet energy held within the forms.
What seemed an unlikely subject turned out to be an interesting landscape. In each case, the perspective proved invaluable and I deliberately kept detail to a minimum; a sparse feeling at the end of the day when the harbour’s activity had come to a lull.
The first two are in gouache and the third is in pastels.
I’m heading back there with partner @debbiemackinnon later this month for an @art.travel.adventures workshop with 12 artists.
We are also heading to the Tarkine which will be in stark contrast to these industrial sheds. Look forward to sharing with you.
A landscape rich in folding fields of olive groves and vineyards and hilltop towns. It is a perfect place to draw, study and make marks that connect you to this beautiful sense of place.
Along with partner @debbiemackinnon I will be once again painting here @hotelleone from 24 April to 1 May 2026.
AND DUE TO A LATE CANCELLATION, ONE SPACE HAS NOW COME AVAILABLE!
Why not join us at this fabulous hotel in this magical part of Italy. It is likely to get snapped up fairly quick, so act quickly.
Click on link in bio for all the info and contact Madeline direct to book.…
Along Hawkhead Track, Bouddi National Park. 5.30pm, January 2026.
The trees feel like a family — idiosyncratic, each with its own personality. One stands ramrod straight, proud and unassailable; its sibling sways and swerves, reckless from an early age, determined to be different.
There’s a point on this walk where the ocean reveals itself. The Pacific sits quietly behind the trees as the sun breaks through. The foreground falls into shadow and the trunks of the eucalypts catch the light, momentarily luminous. A conversation between vertical insistence and lateral calm.
Swipe to see some stages along the way and three final details.
Still a work in progress…my 2025/26 scribble pad. It goes everywhere with me along with a minimal set of pens. Some of these sketches are pre-studies for larger studio paintings and some are the result of my compulsion to keep observing and recording.
It is a great tool for removing hesitation and it’s not precious. It exists to bypass self judgement and it’s always with you.
The second spread, a very quick study of the trees and ferry terminal at Wagstaffe on the NSW Central Coast is a fast impulsive sketch and may well get worked up into something more finished. I liked the way the trees screened off the bay, simple irregular shapes playing havoc with the view but adding the real point of interest. The opportunities for lights and darks and very simple shapes could push it towards a beautiful sense of abstraction. I didn’t analyse it for long, I just followed that pull.
It’s followed by a more detailed sketch in pen and wash.
The final sketch is already developing as a painting on canvas. Look for my next post and you will see it in various stages. How beautiful are eucalypts? This is one small corner of the Bouddi National Park and the late afternoon sun made the trunks and foliage really come alive as the shadows turned deep and ominous.…and that’s where memory comes in. Quick pleinair sketches help cement the memory of time and place.
You make the discoveries of what is going on inside you when you draw and paint; you work intuitively.
Most good artists trust their intuition. It leads to mistakes but that hardly matters. You learn from it.
Don’t wait until you are sure. Enter the conversation and see what answers back.
From the moorlands of north Cornwall, just inland from the coast and a few kilometres from Pendeen, rain pools in deep tracks, reflecting a pale, angular sky. In the distance, pink gorse threads its way across the headland. The landscape refuses cohesion. An abstraction begins to surface – not decorative, but structural. Nature fragments, reorganises, and something angular asserts itself.
I’ve always been drawn to the underlying geometry of the landscape — the way roads, poles, rooftops, fields and horizons quietly organise what at first feels accidental.
These six paintings, in varying degrees of execution, explore that structure: the push and pull between order and atmosphere, between what’s built and what’s felt. Geometry isn’t a constraint here, but a way in — a framework that allows light, weather and intuition to move freely.
The landscape speaks in lines as much as colour, if we take the time to listen.
Back in the studio, I’m continuing work on the development of a geometric series of paintings.
Shown here is a work still in progress—the piece currently in front of me—followed by a finished painting, Musical Geometry, where my intention is to lead the eye to the furthest headland and beyond. I’ve also included a pair of charcoal drawings that distil the complexity of the landscape into primary marks, guided by how I perceived the rhythm and movement within its shapes and contours.
The final painting began as a dense charcoal drawing. From there, I used gouache to progressively reduce the image, retaining only those lines that actively contributed to the composition and painting out the rest. Although these marks are no longer visible, they remain embedded in the work, forming an unseen landscape that underpins the final structure.
These tall Eucalypts rose quickly against the purple mountains of Queensland’s Pacific Rim. The painting started as a rough scribble-pad sketch — no grand plan, just a conversation with the landscape. From there, each layer responded to the last, allowing the medium to lead as much as I did.
Swipe to follow the steps from first marks to finished piece.
