“Bush Trail, Cranbrook”, 2025

James Brown

“Bush Trail, Cranbrook”, 2025

Oil on canvas

Size: 25 x 35 cm

This small painting carries a rich history that began on an outdoor painting expedition with my good friend, Ron McBurnie. We selected our painting site in a narrow stretch of bushland nestled between Townsville’s Ross River and a row of nearby houses, just a short stroll from the riverbank. This area, best described as a nature strip, serves as a sanctuary for wallabies, brush-turkeys, snakes, and even ticks, and is punctuated by a shallow creek.

Initially, my goal was to create a drawing of the surrounding trees using only Burnt Sienna ink on the canvas. Armed with twigs and bits of bark as makeshift drawing tools, I aimed to capture a raw, organic representation of the landscape. However, my initial attempts fell short of my expectations; the marks felt more perfunctory than expressive, and the occasional splatters of ink were simply unfortunate rather than beautiful acts of serendipity. Rather than abandoning the project, I chose to rework the ink stage by layering oil colour, allowing the painting to evolve through a series of revisions. Interestingly, traces of the original ink drawing remain visible, particularly on the left side of the canvas.