Hazy Day, Pastel on Paper, 2010,  (120cm X 90cm)

Since October 2009, I have been working at locations around Melbourne’s bay, attempting to capture the changing land, sea and sky. I have largely been working, ‘en plein air’ from the back of my car.

Due to the immediacy of colour, the use of pastels has afforded me the opportunity to complete this body of work, reasonably quickly. I have worked a variety of sizes of paper, in both portrait and landscape format. The majority of the works were completed on site with touch ups in the studio.

I have wanted to convey the feeling of the seasons, the contrasting of the hot summer day with the crisp winter sky. I have tried to capture the elements through sweeping marks in the skies, contrasting those with the more detailed marks in the land and the foregrounds of the seas. I have altered my horizon lines in order to highlight and feature different aspects of nature and create interest for the viewer.

The challenge has been to represent the scene before me without getting bogged down in detail and overworking the paper. I have attempted to work quickly, with a sense of urgency to capture the every changing light in the sea and the sky.

As I work, exposed out in the elements, there is often an internal war going on inside me. I want to be calm and contained but cannot be. I have an urgent and strong desire to make sense of the world that I am a part of, therefore the struggle is to capture these two opposing forces that exist in nature and in all of us, internally and externally, calmness and chaos.