"Wallaman Hillside," 1989

James Brown

“Wallaman Hillside”, 1989

Oil on canvas, 60 x 80 cm

At the time I painted this reasonably small oil, Isabelle, her husband, John (now sadly passed away) and I were making reasonably frequent weekend camping trips to the Wallaman Falls (Girringun) National Park that is about a three-hour drive from where Isabelle and I now live. It is a magical place with sensibly shy platypuses living in the creek near our campsite and the famous waterfall, Wallaman Falls—the highest, permanent, single-drop waterfall in Australia—a short car ride away. What made the place extra special for me, however, was the bracing mountain air with its rich aroma of forest-floor mulch and the trail along the creek where I made the painting. Thankfully, the park has no nasty critters  … apart from the occasional march fly whose sharp bite can compel one to seek retribution against the fly, a few snakes and many large (almost hand-sized) but virtually harmless golden orb spiders.

From a technical perspective, I initially used fairly dry brushstrokes that were later scraped from the canvas with a palette knife, and reapplied the brushwork using the accumulated scrapped paint on the palette knife. This reapplication of paint allowed me to abut strokes as if I were creating an image reminiscent of marquetry.