Was broken-hearted (and as everyone now says, blind-sided) to discover that we had to vacate Glenrowan after a scant six months and so say farewell to the beautiful new studio space I was so looking forward to using. I have to report that I never painted one single picture in it. That was in part due to health reasons, but have been thinking that maybe it was just too perfect to work in. And also too small. Strangely I don’t seem to have any photographs of it.

It is so difficult to find a great studio, or even just a satisfactory one. I now have the use of a good-sized room in my daughter’s new house round the corner from here. It is a good space, but right near the living and cooking areas of the house and I don’t want to use solvents there. This has led to a surprising decision: have decided to start working in acrylics for a while.

Also thinking about doing a lot more large-scale drawing/mixed media work – great for bushland scenes – and maybe exploring the water-based wax paint further.  In my last post I put up some of the gorgeous flower photographs I took in spring last year. These may be worth trying in both acrylics and wax-paints. Again, though, I need the studio set up properly with good light and furnishings.

Unfortuately I really want to finish  my K-Town series, and as it is in oils unless I work on it in the dark and cold garage. There are several unfinished canvases, and a couple I hadn’t yet started. Together they would make a great series or show, but I need the right space to finish them in.

I could write the history of my frustrated artistic efforts through a memoir of my studios. The Petersham studio was by far the best of all and I did good work there, but even so it was noisy and the oily dust from Parramatta Road got all over everything. Still, I was sorry to leave it. Hard to believe that whole space is no longer inhabited by any of us who were there for so many years.

Heroic works and heroic spaces:

And, in contrast, the quiet domestic intimacy of Elisabeth Cummings’ studio at Wedderburn: