Bring the Green Man to Woodfordia

Nicole is raising funds to gift her bronze sculpture of John as The Green Man and install it at Woodfordia. August 2025 update: we've exceeded the target! We've raised 116% of $10000. Every dollar has been put towards the cost of creating the work, and the cost of installing the work at Woodfordia. If we have any funds left after the installation is complete, they will be used to provide some income for the artist. 

The Story of John Thompson and his Green Man

John Thompson was an extraordinary person. The finest singer of his generation, with the fastest wit and the wildest courage, he performed at Woodford from its inception as Maleny Folk Festival. He sang songs that made us cry laughing, songs that made us weep. At early Maleny festivals he performed a cappella harmonies with Maree Robertson and Ann Bermingham in One Step Forward, and for many years our Woodford festivals inevitably started with comedy breakfast with Never The Twain, his surreal collaboration with Martin Pearson (describing themselves as 'like two ping pong balls in a washing machine'). 

With Nicole Murray he toured the world as Cloudstreet, performing in ten countries, making nine albums of original and traditional folk with elegant vocal harmonies and many instruments, and in later years including Emma Nixon in their collaboration.

A noted songwriter, scholar, lawyer, social justice advocate and keen concertina player, John was a beloved member of Woodfordia society.

At the 2016/17 festival, John was unusually, deeply fatigued, and later that year was diagnosed with colo-rectal cancer. In his remaining almost-four years, he achieved many wonderful things, not least being the final Cloudstreet album, with orchestral arrangements by Emma Nixon, recorded in a sold out live concert at the State Library of Qld. The album is Cloudstreet and the Little Cloud Orchestra.

He is commemorated in Toowong Cemetery by a sculpture of The Green Man, made by his wife, artist and musician Nicole Murray. Nicole would like to gift a second bronze casting of the sculpture to Woodfordia to install on the land, and needs some help from you to cover the costs.

Nicole's story of making the sculpture.

I have made a portrait of my beloved late husband, John Thompson, as The Green Man. The notion of the Green Man was dear to John, he wrote a song of the same name, which is much sung round the world. He described the foliate head of the green man as a 900 year artistic fad in churches across Europe, and as the positive representation of creative and spiritual masculinity, the keeper of the turning seasons, the spirit of the forest.

In late 2020, not long before John died, I asked him if he would like me to make a bronze of him as the Green Man to place on his grave. He had bought a plot at Toowong Cemetery.

He was keen. I said I would like to make a very quick face cast using plaster bandage, to give me a rough idea of his proportions, on a day when he was feeling well enough, and he said, today I feel well enough. He was patient and very interested in the process.

Making the sculpture after his death has been a long and very challenging project. It has involved two years of work: relearning sculpture techniques, taking my skills to a professional level, struggling with design decisions, talking to John as I worked, and travelling to Melbourne several times from Queensland. I acknowledge with enormous gratitude the help, advice and moral support I received from my Kneen Street family in Melbourne, Peter Corlett, Louise Skacej and Dean Colls. 

It took the first year to make the work itself. Long, long days first in Peter's studio, then in mine. The weather got cold and I confess most of the work happened on the kitchen bench, where it was warmer. I will forever find tiny fragments of green wax in the kitchen. Then came the phase of silicone mould-making, then the creation of two waxes, each of which had to be hand finished to perfect the details. They were cast in bronze at Meridian Sculpture in Melbourne, by the wonderfully skilled team of artisans whose work is truly beautiful.

Once I had the bronzes finished and had driven them home to Queensland, I laboured over the design of the stone on which the bronze would sit. Every step of the process required me to journey through memories to understand how to express the essence of John's nature. Eventually I realised that for a man with an exquisite tenor voice who had spent his life singing folk music, and who chose after his diagnosis to make a journey to The Hill of Tara and Newgrange in Ireland, and who was a polymath with boundless interest in the world and a great love of celtic cultures, a grouping of standing stones was the right choice.

I worked with Queensland Heritage Masonry to find the stones and bring the monument to fruition. We had quite an adventure, going boulder hunting in Ferny Grove, and Dan and Aloysius calmly listened to my instructions and hopes, and honed, rebated and sandblasted to create the repository for the bronze.

 The stones are Keperra red granite, local to John's home in Brisbane. The leaves I have used in the sculpture include many symbolic choices from places he lived and knew: Ashgrove rainforest leaves, traditional green man oak leaves from Canberra and Melbourne, pak choy, hops, ferns, mango, eucalypt, ivy.

This is my gift to him, to commemorate a sparkling, witty, musical, political, precious man who was the cleverest person I ever met.

Image: Brian Ellwood

Listen to John and Nicole singing The Green Man here.

DONATE TO THE SCULPTURE FUND

The Green Man
© John Thompson

The Green Man's a traveller, a reveller, unraveller
Of dreams and of fancies, from first to the last.
Older than all men, living in all things
Son, father and sage,
Long live the Green Man!

First light of first morning saw the Green Man there waiting
He saw the creation and joined in the dance
All creatures grew 'round him, he grew with them singing
The first song of all, sing of the Green Man

Quietly watching and waiting and learning
The storms are his fury, the lightning his laugh
The first leaf of spring, his beauty and glory
His stillness his power, in the trees is his path.

There are fewer trees now, but the man is not sleeping
'Though our ruin brings sorrow to time's oldest heart
In our souls we may find him and remember his wisdom
And rekindle the flame; once again make a start.

The sculpture was shown at Sculpture on the Edge, at Flaxton Gardens in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, from 23 November - 1 December 2024. I mounted the bronze on a beautiful slab of Norfolk pine, and warmly thank Joe and Ricky Lynch for their support and help, especially with sourcing materials and welding.

Washed away in the flood.

 In a year full of historic events, Brisbane experienced a 'once in a century' flood event in February. Except we also had one eleven years ago.

My house was all safe in spite of 80% of our usual annual rainfall arriving in one week, and I was just about to breath a sigh of relief. Then I was notified that my art and document archive, located in a storage unit in inner Brisbane, was inundated, and closed until the water had gone down and it was safe to enter.

Two days later we were allowed in, and water had reached chest height in my unit. Many things were out of reach of the water, but more things had been drowned. The entire exhibition of art painted on books, which I showed at Toowong Library (there's a post about it with pictures further down the page), had to be thrown away. Lots of other works on paper had to go, but I'm doing my best to salvage The Fiddle Icons series, which are oil on board with gold leaf. They are in a muddy state of disrepair, but they seem stable, so I've started by working my way through the archive of family documents and photos. Many photos have been too badly damaged to save, and I'm deeply sad to see family history for the Murray, Fenwick, Mathiesen and Gilchrist families in Scotland, England, Denmark and North Queensland and Victoria, in ruins. 

I'm scanning many things, and then disposing of many of them. Some are able to be saved. I've been doing this for two weeks now, and I can see an end somewhere in sight. There is a lot of grieving to be done while peeling apart all these papers. Thank you to many of my dear friends who helped with all sorts of things, from moral support to hefting wet things out of storage, to helping with logistics and acquiring a dehumidifier (one of the world's wonders).

At the moment, I'm not too proud to say all donations to my "donate" button will be gratefully received.

Lamb Island Storytelling Festival

 

This weekend I am presenting at the Lamb Island Storytelling Festival as a songwriter, and talking about two or three songs I've written, under the trees at the community garden. My auspicious company for the session includes Joe Geia, Vicky MacDonald, John Willsteed and Esther Bertram. Check out the island and the festival here. This afternoon at 1pm, the songwriting session is called "Words that change the World".

Here are the lyrics of two songs I'm singing and discussing in case you'd like to consider the words.

The Wooden Spoon

© Nicole Murray

The wooden spoon is in my fingers, it is dancing in the dough

Creaming butter in with sugar, beating egg-whites into snow

Folding milk and flour in turn, and fragrant tablespoon of liquor

Lightly rising with my thoughts as little candles burn and flicker.

I'm the cook of all the ages, in my arms the mixing bowl

Baking tray or double saucepan, raising up a banquet for your soul.

I make rituals to mark you rites of passage, spoon and knife

Dancing as I place along the table all the courses of your life

Sweetest mother's milk I gave you, at the triumph of your birth

Filled with magical protection, honouring your first day on this earth

Every year a fine confection of a cake to mark that day

Candles, sparkles, cats and spacemen,

Princesses in sugar-spun array.

Clashing bells and petals floating, wedding breakfast in the park

Platters of sublime invention, sailing round your incandescent spark

When you slid the blessed knife through royal icing's counterpane

Moistened depths of fruit lay open, all the ringing crystal bubbles sang

When your final course was served, the table's merry disarray

Told of splendour and reknown, a wondrous life resumed into the clay

I was there to play my part, for smooth as marble sat the cake

Clinking glasses, glowing stories, all the love that gathered at your wake.

Fruit cake, fruit cake, Christmas cake is fruit cake, wedding cake is fruit cake

Nuts and cherries, rum or brandy,

Fruit cake, fruit cake, wrapped in paper new-baked,

Festive journeys we make to mark a grand occasion with a.....

Violet Sarah

© Nicole Murray

We are travelling through a town this day and must have bread

And it’s where can I find a good baker in this town she said.

When we have supplies on board we shall both thirsty be

And it’s where can I find a good alehouse in this town said she.

On the Violet Sarah, Violet Sarah, beauty of the cut, jewel of the travelling waters.

In the Beehive Tavern by the tow path on the right

We will sup on the finest of real ale pint by pint.

In the Beehive Tavern there’s an ale called Dove’s Delight

And it tastes of the raspberries in summer, honey and sunlight.

Do you see that cloud-white swan with trailing cygnets three?

She comes asking for scraps at the galley, snapping viciously.

Don’t throw aught into the cut for cygnet or for duck,

Nor to wash in the vile green water only brings bad luck.

Climbing through the hedgerow not a mile or two from Bath,

We go dancing along in the meadow all about the path.

Down the reedy bank unto the river’s shady brim,

We can hear that the Avon is calling us to come and swim

Nancy, dearest Nancy, do not fall into the drink

As you’re painting the name on your vessel, toes upon the brink

Don’t be so foul-tempered, dearest Nancy dripping wet

With a bruise like a blackberry and a mouthful of regrets

[Sitting in the bow we sing the Green Man song again,

And reprise it all afternoon, we sing hundreds of green men.

Don't break my green man, don't break my green man

Don't break my plaster cast of him, I like him a lot.]

Scenic Art - a big month at Queensland Theatre

Every now and then a big, exciting job comes along.

In February I painted and finished the set for the world premiere production of Hydra. A new play by Sue Smith, tracing the story of Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston in their ten year odyssey on the Greek island, Hydra required floor to ceiling plaster walls and a stone floor, with props and furniture. After working on every single surface on the set, I now feel capable of renovating a house!

Working closely with the building team, Pete, John, Alex, Jamie and Chris, and set designer Vilma Matilla, I created the floor panels first, then experimented with the plaster wall texture, doing final finishes in situ after bump in to make it all consistent.

The Art of the Book - on show at Toowong Library

I have a new exhibition on show at the Toowong Library. The Art of the Book is a collection of my paintings on books and altered books. The works share an emphasis on narrative and as books, they come with an inherent connection to storytelling. Thematically, they are a microcosm of an actual library, because their subject matter varies wildly from politics to landscape, history and Dr Who.

Here are some images from the show. Please come along and see the works while they are at Toowong. The show runs until the end of August 2015.

Carousel. Acrylic paint on book. $200

Images of circus and fairground recur in Nicole's work, the places where our imaginations run wild and where our dreams live.

The Magical Cloud Crown. Collage, acrylic paint and metallic leaf on book. $200

This evocative occult image, with it's intimations of magic spells, comes from a collection of occultism found in a remainders bookshop called “Book Off”, in Tokyo.

Weeping Angel. Polymer clay, collage and mixed media on book. $200

We are as culturally bound together in contemporary society by shared televisual fictions as we once were by literature. Weeping Angel is an expression of one of our most surprisingly resilient stories.

Weird Fish. Shellac, acrylics and oil paints on book. $200

The idea that water creatures might worship the moon came from Maleny painter Peter Hudson. These water creatures evolved from pictures in a mediaeval manuscript.

Twa Corbies. Acrylic paint and charcoal on book. $200

The ancient Scottish ballad, Twa Corbies, tells of two crows in a field, surveying the abandoned body of a knight in a ditch, and deciding which part to choose for dinner (his bonny blue e'en, or eyes) and which part to line their nest with (his gowden hair).

The Dragonflies. Acrylic paint on book. $200

Some artworks are a direct response to the book at hand, and the book's original title sparked an exploration of winged cut-outs and the use of book pages for paper art.

The Whitlams. Collage and acrylic paint on book. $200

The imagery of orthodox saints has been appropriated to depict two giants of Australian social and political history.

On the fourth day of Christmas - four little paintings!

I am delighted to be included in the Small Works show at Bosz Gallery, 4/9 Doggett Street, Fortitude Valley, for the Christmas season. The show is full of works up to 50cm x 40cm, and up to about $400, so if you are looking for an artwork for your special gift, here's a good place to start!

Christmas is a time of storytelling, and I have chosen works from my series of paintings on books to resonate with the idea of a time to think, reflect and imagine. Each work is framed and ready to hang, and is $400.

Please join me at the gallery on Friday 12 December for their Christmas party. There will be drinks, nibbles and art from 6pm. If you can't make it then, the gallery is open 10 - 6, Wed to Sun.

The Merry-go-round in the Sea
Acrylic and charcoal on book substrate, 2014.
Named after the book by Randolf Stow, this is a work about childhood memories.

The Peace Cranes
Charcoal, sculpted paper and shellac on book substrate, 2014.
Drawings of nests are embedded between the pages, and a flock of origami cranes fly across their folded world, made from a legal tome on land law. They live within yet outside of the human world.

Matthew Brady's Lookout.
Acrylic and collage on book substrate, 2014.
Matthew Brady was a notorious bushranger-pirate in Tasmania. He excaped from the horrors of Sarah Island in 1824, and spent the next two years robbing coaches and ships, until he was betrayed and hanged in 1826. This is the view from his lookout, where he had a clear sightline to the road and the river. 

A Toy Theatre for Melba
Mixed media on book substrate, 2014
Fascinated with the world of the imagination created in Victorian toy theatres, I made one within a book, with curtains and proscenium arch made from aluminium flashing, and Melba upon the stage.

The artworks have been framed in decorative box frames and are ready to hang.

 

A New Studio and a New Collection of Work.

With the launch of my Creative Art Services business this year, thanks to NEIS, I am combining my skills and providing music and art performances, tuition, fine art pieces and merch. My new workspace is in West End, a very stimulating part of Brisbane, and I'm developing an expressive collection of art pieces, working with books. Here is a series of images following the development of "Weird Fish", a piece based on a mediaeval illumination of the same name.

Fiddle Icons Show in Derry, 2012

Fiddle Icons - latest news.

Huge thanks to all the generous supporters who carried me to the target of $3000 to make my Fiddle Icons show in Northern Ireland possible. As you can see from the Pozible widget at the side of the blog, we went to 110%, a brilliant result.

The first use for the money is to pay for digital capture and reproduction of the images. The paintings are currently at Brisbane Digital Images, where the work is progressing apace. The meticulous Martin Barry is scanning the images and doing the colour corrections. As soon as they are ready, I will post the images on the blog, and email them to all my supporters so you can choose the image you would like as your reward. I will also have postcards made of them.

The fiddle players to choose from are, from left to right: Emma Nixon, Nancy Kerr, Natalie Haas, Alasdair Fraser, Martin Hayes, Dougie Maclean and Ado Barker.

Although I am currently on tour with Cloudstreet in the UK, I am attempting to finish some watercolours of other fiddlers I have interviewed, to show alongside the major works at NAFCo.

The show will run for the duration of the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in Derry, from 27 June to 1 July.

More news as it comes to hand!

Nancy Kerr as the Madonna of the Fiddle

Here she is, the iconic Nancy Kerr, with the Southern Cross in her dress and the babes at her feet. Sunrise and foliage ideas courtesy of Claude Lorrain, but Nancy's beatific look is all her own doing!

Dougie Maclean portrait completed!

Very excited to have just finished Dougie Maclean's portrait, down to the last glaze, the ribbon of his OBE and the celtic knotwork in the background.

Dougie has played fiddle since his youth, but is best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist with an intimate manner that reaches the hearts of his audience. When I interviewed him, he didn't bring a fiddle, but as he talked about playing and writing music on the fiddle, his hands naturally described the shape of fiddle playing with long-accustomed grace. He said he plays fiddle the way he sings, playing the airs of songs, and filling his playing with emotion.

I have painted him in a characteristically relaxed and casual pose, but surrounded him with the trappings of formality which also characterise his life. And he is truly an air-fiddler.

dougiemaclean.com

Fiddles are closer to Ireland already.

Huge thanks to the brilliant supporters who have already, after only a day, pledged financial support for my "art on tour" project! I have put the Pozible progress widget on the side of the blog, so its easy to keep track of how its going. This is so exciting! You can also go straight to my Pozible link.

And I'm currently working on three paintings simultaneously, having finished the portrait of Scottish fiddle pin-up girl Emma Nixon.

Emma is the driving force behind the mass playing of Scottish fiddle music in Brisbane, Australia, having started the Brisbane Celtic Fiddle Club (brisbanecelticfiddleclub.com), and leading celtic ensembles in schools and at the Young Conservatorium. She is the recipient, with Chris Stone, of the 2012 National Folk Fellowship and they have just this week completed a new album of Scottish fiddle music from the collection of the National Library of Australia, which they will launch at the National Folk Festival in two weeks.

Fiddles to Ireland!

I'm in the middle of all the paintings, and I've got two weeks to finish them. It will happen! But to get them to Northern Ireland and put on the show, I need to raise some funds, so I'm starting a Pozible Crowdfunding project. That will go live in the next day or so, and here's what I'm saying on it:

Fiddles to Ireland!

by Nicole Murray

Pledge your support to take Australian paintings on tour to Northern Ireland.

Project Description

The Fiddle Icons Project.

I'm an Australian painter, raising funds to take my portraits of fiddle players to the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in Derry, Northern Ireland. The show is called "Fiddle Icons" and the portraits are of influential fiddle players I have interviewed and painted. The subjects include Alasdair Fraser, Natalie Haas, Nancy Kerr, Martin Hayes, Emma Nixon, Dougie Maclean and Ado Barker.

I decided to dream big and apply to have an international exhibition, and now they've said yes, I need to make it happen!

I've been accepted to show them at the convention, I'm presenting a talk on my intriguing process of working from video interviews to create paintings, finished with gold leaf. I have a ticket to the UK.

Now I need a budget to get the paintings there, insure them, stay in Northern Ireland for the conference week.

You can help to put on this international exhibition in Derry by pledging your support through Pozible. I'm focussed on raising $3300 to cover packaging and shipping the paintings, insuring them, and covering my accommodation and living expenses while I'm in Ireland for a week.

I'm planning a major exhibition of these works along with more from the same series here in Australia, so I'll bring them back to Australia.

About the Artist

I have been a painter all my life, and my work has often focussed on portraits of musicians. My first solo exhibition was called "The People of the Music" and showed drawings and paintings of folk musicians from around Australia. I completed my art training in Melbourne and my paintings are in collections around Australia and in the UK.

For the past twelve years I have worked in the acclaimed folk duo, "Cloudstreet", touring Australia and internationally. We have just completed our seventh album, "The Land of Bright Gold", and we embark on our seventh tour of the UK in mid-April. The Fiddle Icons paintings will be shipped to meet me in Northern Ireland at the end of the Cloudstreet tour, when I will be attending the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention, as a painter (but I'll take a fiddle!).

More information.

You can buy the reward as a gift.

After you have paid, please email me at nicole@cloudstreet.org and let me know the name and email of the person you would like to receive the reward.

When and where is the show?

Dates: 27 June - 1 July

Where: At NAFCo, the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention, Derry, Northern Ireland. (www.nafco2012.com). I'll update the info on my blog and website as soon as the venue is confirmed. (nicolemurrayartblog.blogspot.com, www.cloudstreet.org)

How will I get my reward?

I will contact everyone about their reward, once project has closed and payment has been received.

Need further information?

I would love to hear from you to discuss any of your queries. You can email me at nicole@cloudstreet.org.

Yes, we can exceed the goal!

$3,300 is the absolute minimum to make the exhibition happen in Derry. I am already investing a lot of resources and funds into the production of the works and the staging of the exhibition. Every extra dollar raised above the goal will go towards making this exhibition the best it can possibly be, with better promotion and high quality presentation.

Thank you for taking the time to read my page! Please support my project by making a pledge, no matter how small the amount. Every bit helps. I would also really appreciate you letting your friends know about the project. I'll be blogging and facebooking updates so you know how its all going.

Cheers,

Nicole

Fiddle Icons

In the middle of working on a new morris dancing painting, I went to New Zealand to attend Boxwood, a week-long workshop studying flute and fiddle, with three acclaimed teachers, Chris Norman, Alasdair Fraser, and Natalie Haas.

A concept for a show which had been simmering in my mind suddenly achieved clarity, and I have started a body of work called "Fiddle Icons". The works I am planning will be portraits of influential fiddle players and their instruments, borrowing some of the iconography of traditional Byzantine icon painting, which is mostly used for religious images. It has the advantage of being a beautiful form, features gold leaf, and conveys a sense of the subject being revered.

The Fiddle Icons series has been gestating for a long time. Its seven years since I met Peter Murphy, who paints icons in egg tempera and gold leaf. I fortuitously met him in Broadstairs, Kent, and got to spend time in his studio. The ideas in his work made such a strong impact on me, I have been keeping a little flame alive all that time, wanting to borrow some of the techniques. You can see his beautiful work here: www.petermurphyicons.co.uk

In that seven years I have also started to play the fiddle, and I wanted to revisit an older body of work when I was painting portraits of folk musicians.

At Boxwood, the concept and the process all gelled. In order to make an expressive portrait, I am interviewing my subject on video. I ask them two questions. "What gives you joy in your music?" and "Tell me about your instrument." I have conducted four interviews so far, and the emerging theme is that people become poetic and philosophical in a fascinating way when finding an answer to these questions. And it shows in their expressions.

I then parse through the video and select individual frames which seem to express my subject's personality. I'm seeking the essence of who they are as a musician, rather than a candid image.

From there, I create a portrait. So far I have done a small work of Alasdair Fraser, my first interview subject, in gouache on paper. It is a study. The final portrait will be in oils, I think at the moment, on board, with gold leaf. I may experiment with egg tempera, as the results look spectacular, but I would have to learn a lot about the medium.

The second part of the project is to paint the instrument. It may be a full painting of my subject's instrument, or it may be a detail of the part they talk about or favour in their interview. The instrument will be on a separate panel, hinged to the portrait.

The third part of the project will be to transcribe the interview, and select quotes which inform the viewer about the musician's philosophy.

A Year Without Painting

Its been a year of huge events. I spent much of the time for six months going back and forward to Townsville, spending time with my mother in the last days of her life. It was a profound goodbye, full of grace and beauty, longing and grief.

In that year without painting, I also toured with cloudstreet to the UK and New Zealand, as well as several Australian tours, and we moved house from Maleny to Brisbane.

Now the seismic changes are settling, and I'm in my new studio, about to start on an exciting new project.

Finished! The Schonell Fig.

Sculpted, muscular, complex and graceful, all descriptions of my newly finished painting, now safely with its new owners. "The Schonell Fig" is named for the bridge it stands beside, on the banks of the Brisbane River. And with that commission happily completed, I have gone to England to be a touring musician for three months. I wonder if I can get any small paintings done while we're on the road?

A temporary studio and a big painting.

Its been a challenging year for painting. My studio in Maleny was sold (along with the building it was hiding behind) and when I finally got there after a tour to clear out my gear, I discovered everything, especially my paintings, had gone mouldy. 

This month there have been some heartening developments. First, my friend Peter lent me part of his garage in which to work, and it has great light. Then, I decided to do a 3-night portrait class with Brett Lethbridge in Brisbane. Its always inspiring to work with an accomplished painter and learn about their techniques. The technique Brett taught involved a tone painting in sepia to work out all the compositional and tonal issues. I would call it a grisaille, but Wikipedia says its more properly a brunaille, as it started in acrylic Burnt Sienna. Once all the lights and darks had reached their full value, we worked it over again using Burnt Umber. And a third time using Payne's Grey. By this stage the blacks looked truly black and the subtlety was there. Then, as we were working on Arches paper, we washed it liberally with watercolours, then worked the lights back in delicately with acrylic white.

The technique was disciplined and involved good observation as well as graphics techniques. I liked it and it freed up my thinking to tackle a large commission I've had on the list for a long time, and about which I've been very blocked.

I'm delighted to say its going very well, the technique translates beautifully to acrylic on canvas in a slightly more painterly style, and here is a picture of the tone painting after 13 hours of work. There is still a bit of work left to finish the Burnt Sienna layer, but its moving fast. The canvas is slightly more than a metre wide.

Back on the Painting Trail

In the midst of painting two commissions, which is taking up most of my studio time, the final Collaboration of Maleny Artists (yup, COMA) show for the year suddenly appeared on the radar.

Organiser and gallery owner Ken Munsie devised a fascinating theme for this show. Each artist has been allotted a square of the ordnance map around the Maleny area, and asked to create a square artwork based on the little piece of geography. I picked a square adjoining the main road from Landsborough into town, and went to the site for an afternoon of sketching the layout, checking out the landscape and vegetation, and taking copious reference photos. Back in the studio, I created "The Summer Visitor" from all the collected information, working quickly in acrylics, overlaying areas of glazed and layered colours. When the image had come together, I varnished it with a high gloss combination of stand oil, damar varnish and Liquin. 

The show can be seen from Wednesday 9 December at Maleny Artworks, 50 Maple Street, Maleny, and there is an official opening there on Saturday afternoon.

Publicity, Photos and Markets!

My work on the traffic signal box at Maroochydore is featured this weekend in Sunshine Coast magazine "The Weekender". For everyone who doesn't live on the coast (sigh), the article can be found at http://www.theweekender.com.au/features_det.php?id=337, but only those who can get a hard copy can see the picture! There's an image of the box in the June entry on this blog.

This week I asked professional photographer Colin Beard to take photos of some of my paintings, and now there are some very high resolution images on my Redbubble page. Redbubble is an Australian site where you can order prints, cards and canvasses of artists' work, and you can see mine at www.redbubble.com/people/nicolemurray. If you do get a print done on Redbubble, I'm happy to sign it if we can find a way to be in real time and space together, not just in the virtual world.

AND... this weekend I am starting a market stall, where I am selling cards of my paintings. I'm starting small, to test out the market, and looking forward to having a chat to people about art. Or anything! The stall will be at the Maleny Craft Markets, in the Community Centre in Maleny's main street, on Sunday 11 October from 8-2. See you there.

Sold!

I'm delighted to report that "The Quiet Heart" sold before the exhibition opened! The show at Maleny Artworks closes on Wednesday 1 October, and "To the Island", pictured in the previous post below, is still available.

Reinvigorated by being in a show and selling a painting, I am now working on a commission for a fig painting in oils, and planning my next body of work. As well as continuing with paintings of banyan figs, and probably expanding to mangroves so I can incorporate more water in the images, I plan to revisit my studies of movement and reflection in water (started in 2007), and begin a whole new series based on circus, burlesque and acrobatic performers. I have preparatory drawings for this series dating back to 1987! I'm longing to paint luscious fabrics and lithe, sexy movement, and looking forward to using the figure again. I plan to start with a series of drawings to explore composition for larger paintings, and develop the drawings into a collection of handcoloured prints. Watch this space!