Looking at Glen Huntly; Work in Progress

Open Studio This Saturday 9/9/2017, along with the Glen Huntly Village Street Market 10am - 2pm

It has been a busy few months and I have gradually been producing some new pieces of work.

I am currently working on my Melbourne paintings, as well as following the Tigers with some smaller A3 works (I will write about these in a separate post) and trying to slot in a few commissions here and there.

With my studio located about 14 km out of Melbournes CBD in the suburb of Glen Huntly, I am working with the local environment as my source of motivation to create. I started with my Melbourne works ten years ago looking at some of Melbourne's more iconic places. More recently have confined my subject to the street life within the Glen Eira municipality. 

I began with some of the urban portraits I did of local people with at work, kids coming home from school and some of the local tradesmen I was acquainted with. This year I have zoomed out a bit and have been looking for everyday moments, vignettes of fleeting transactions between the people on our streets.

I am finding this is a great way to work and in having a studio right on a main road, in a shopping strip, I need only to step outside and take a wander in order to find my subjects, ideas and inspiration.

I have lived in this area for almost 20 years and I am seeing a constant shift and evolution in the way my suburb looks, lives and behaves.

The suburb has seen some big changes with the demolition of large homes giving way to apartment blocks. This of course, not being anything new; a short stroll through the streets will show you that such development clearly took place back in the late 1950's and 1960's.

Like many suburbs within a 15 Km radius of the city, Glen Huntly (and the neighbouring suburb of Carnegie) is loosing the classic family homes that once characterised the suburb. Large Californian Bungalows and Edwardian homes along with their sizeable backyards are literally disappearing from our streetscape. More people are living in smaller homes, apartments or flats and often with little outdoor space. 

And so I find it really interesting to watch and observe the rich cultural variety of day to day life that unfolds upon the pavements and footpaths of the suburb.

My perspective is often from my drivers side seat as I sit out the often protracted time spent with the boom gates down at the Glen Huntly Rd. level crossing, as well as that of a pedestrian and a local resident.

You can follow some of these ideas and sketches as I develop them into paintings on my Instagram site..  lookatmelbourne

I recently read an article describing Glen Huntly as grotty and sleepy. Yes, it certainly needs cleaning up in places but I do challenge the notion that perhaps our suburb has little to offer.

If you would like to share your thoughts on our suburb Glen Huntly please do...with respect, naturally, leave a comment, memory or  opinion.

Flinders Street Corner

For a while I have been working on the small pen and ink watercolours. I wrote about it here

You can also follow Look at Melbourne on instagram.

My plan is to explore Melbourne city and suburbia with pen, pencil, watercolour...whatever is at hand. 

Look at Melbourne; Small Works on Paper

 

Watch my new series unfold as I take to the streets, city and suburbs of Melbourne, with pen, ink, watercolour, and perhaps oil and canvas, in hand. 

The journey begins from Point Ormond, previously known as Little Red Bluff, St.Kilda

Background info:

One of the things that appeals to me about working with pen and ink directly on to paper, is the immediacy of being able to create a work.

It is very much a process of being in the moment and observing, deeply, that which is around you.

 In many ways it is a form of reportage, taking notes and recording the dramas and things that unfold within that environment as they occur; things that are quite ordinary. I try to explore the connections between people and places.

A pen has the capacity to be moved quickly across a page, be it a sketchbook, a dinner menu or an expensive sheet of Arches water-colour paper. The quality of the surface matters little, the execution of line, however, is vital. Perceived errors must be ignored or reconsidered in order to complete the piece.

I see these works as not unlike fine threads, that when woven together create a larger, robust piece of cloth.

It is an enriching process, as it moves me, the artist, beyond the studio and places me very much within the sphere of action.

I become a willing participant within the work.

Follow Look At Melbourne on Instagram.