Snow on Bluff Knoll

Just shy of 1100m high, Bluff Knoll is the highest peak in southern Western Australia and, as such, is the only place in Western Australia where snow is likely to fall every year. 

But, even on Bluff Knoll, snow is not exactly a common occurrence so when it does fall, it is something of an event and can result in traffic chaos.

Last year my son and I started doing some of the mountain hikes in our region and I also took an interest in reading weather charts in an attempt to predict snow. Last week those two pursuits came together and we  hiked to the top of Bluff Knoll to encounter a spectacular (by Western Australian standards) snow-covered landscape.

We woke at 2am, left home around 3am and arrived at a surprisingly empty Bluff Knoll car park almost an hour later. We began the 3km hike up the mountain around 4am, three hours before sunrise.

Luckily, the moon was almost full and the sky was clear so we had pretty good visibility, even when we turned our torches off. Once we exited the bush-land part of the walk and traversed the steady incline above the main treeline, we could see the mountain range for kilometres to the west although sunrise was still two hours away.

It was a slow, steady walk - made slower by me overheating twice.

Last Thursday morning was predicted to be one of the coldest mornings of the year and I was expecting wet, blustery weather - indeed there had been significant rainfall overnight - but morning on the mountain was clear and still. There was barely any breeze at all, so my five layers of clothing, plus ski gloves, very quickly turned out to be two layers of clothing and two gloves too many.

With that problem sorted, after two stops to shed layers and re-compose myself, we enjoyed a steady walk toward the summit.

By this stage, we had given up on any hope of seeing snow - it was far too pleasant. We were now just hoping to catch a nice sunrise from the top.

Near the 2km mark, we were overtaken by a reporter carrying a snowboard and after I wished him luck, he pointed to the snow at our feet. We hadn't noticed it in the dark.

From here on the snow increased almost exponentially every 20m or so, until it seemed like every surface, including every branch of every shrub, was caked in snow and ice. There wasn't nearly enough snow - or space - to truly accommodate a snow board, but the reporter was just providing a bit of humorous media fodder. 

The vista of snow slowed our walk still further as we stopped repeatedly to take photos in the pre-sunrise twilight. We eventually reached the top of the mountain just after sunrise and were greeted with the astonishing sight of the distant eastern ridge silhouetted against an orange sky with pink-orange sunlight streaming across the snow-covered foreground.

It was sublime. It was magical. It was, quite literally, a winter wonderland. And, if I am to work a painting angle into this story at all, let me say it provided a wonderful lesson in warm lights and cool shadows as it was difficult not to notice the orange-blue complements.

The best thing about this trip was that we were two of just a dozen or so people at the top. A month earlier, with snow predictions broadcast widely across social and mainstream media, hundreds of people converged to make the trek, resulting in access being restricted for most of the day by national park rangers.

But the best thing about this trip was the perfect weather. The throngs who battled the trek in July endured stormy, blizzard-like conditions with some snow flurries, but no snow on the ground.

But the best thing about this trip was that, although no snow fell for us, we saw possibly some of the best snow coverage this mountain ever enjoys.

But the best thing about this trip was that a quokka made an appearance at the top. Yep, I think that was definitely the icing on the cake - a quokka, on top of a mountain, in the snow. My son took a bunch of photos of it and, if you haven't already seen that story splashed all over the media, then I imagine a quick search will find it for you.

Please note, all images are copyright. Please do not re-publish without permission. Thanks.

Newdegate Field Days

The Newdegate Machinery Field Days began in 1972 and are run by volunteer committee. Spread across the first Wednesday and Thursday in September, the Newdegate Machinery Field Days is an event that keeps our committee busy all year round and our community busy in the weeks leading up to our event. Our aim is to host a world class agricultural machinery display, which has now expanded to include livestock, family and recreational interests.

The successful running of the Newdegate Machinery Field Days has enabled us to support our local community with donations to many local projects.

All of our volunteers record their hours to a local club or the Royal Flying Doctor who benefit with a donation from NMFD. We are also in partnership with National Disability Services and honour their Companion Card Scheme. [source]

I've been telling myself for the last 10 years, since moving to Mt Barker, that I should enter some work in the Newdegate Field Days art competition. I finally did it this year and decided that I should also go and take a look at the exhibition. It's a little under 300km by road from Mt Barker to Newdegate and it takes a little over three hours to drive there.

It was a fantastic couple of days. My wife and I had two nights' accommodation arranged on a farm about 50km north of Newdegate. I sold both paintings at the exhibition, so had nothing to pick up and bring home. The weather was perfect - clear skies, warm, sunny days and still nights with starry skies.

The 3,000 hectare (7,500 acre) farm features wheat and barley and around 3,000 head of sheep. Our wonderful host, Doug, gave us a tour of the property which features some amazing landscape painting opportunities.

I was up and about at sunrise on our first morning and headed to a spot I'd noticed the previous evening, where a farm track deviates around a group of Salmon Gums. It's a simple landscape featuring a white sand track. I love white sand tracks and this scene was made for painting - so I painted it. It's not often that things are arranged exactly as you want them.

Around the trees. 

Plein air sketch. 30x25cm oil on board.

© Andy Dolphin

Salmon Gums are beautiful, stately trees. The leaves are incredibly dark green and form massive canopies, sometimes resembling giant umbrellas. The trunks are pale and glossy so they change colour dramatically, depending on the time of day and the hue of the sunlight.

I began with a rough wash of cadmium scarlet to tone sections of the board before laying in the painting. I used a limited palette of ultramarine, cadmium yellow light and cadmium scarlet - something I plan to do more of when painting on location. Most of the trunk on the main tree was added using a palette knife and I was really pleased with the result.

While I was painting, a large flock of sheep moved through the shadow cast by the trees. If I do a  larger version of this one, I might add the sheep in.

Here's the location shot...

That afternoon, I headed out to a spot where the mostly-flat land rises abruptly up a white limestone escarpment.

The sun was dropping fast and I knew I was going to be pushed for time on this one. I had to think fast and make sure I got the most important shapes locked in before all the shadows had shifted. I painted for about 45 minutes, but the main rock face fell into shadow after about 10 minutes. I relied on a quick under-painting to guide me as to where the sunlit areas were supposed to be.

I used the same limited palette as above but added permanent crimson to give me better purples in the shadows.

Here's how it ended up.

Newdegate escarpment. 

Plein air sketch. 25x30cm oil on board.

© Andy Dolphin

It's rough and suffers a bit in the composition department, but I think I've captured the general feeling of the spot. Between this plein air painting and a couple of location photos, I might be able to produce a decent studio piece.

I don't have a shot of the painting on location but you can see me working on it in the photo at the top of this article.

Big thanks to Doug for looking after us, showing us around and allowing me to explore the property.

Early morning - plein air landscape in oil

Third update for the day.

I was up just after 7am and the sky was clear and the sun was just beginning to shed light on things. So I got my gear together and headed out for a little "early-morning" painting.

If you've been following along in the last few weeks, you know what happened next. Yes, the clouds rolled in. But I soldiered on.

I set myself up in a paddock looking towards the abandoned cottage I painted last weekend. I noticed this view yesterday afternoon and realised it would light up nicely in the early morning.

And I was right. Things were exactly as I expected, when the sun broke through the clouds.

I did a quick thumbnail while the sun was shining and committed as much of the scene to memory as I could. It was far too cloudy to risk a big painting so I grabbed a small board and set about doing a sketch.

It was cloudy most of the time, so plenty of memory was required and it rained on me, again, and it was cold (I wore my gloves again and even took a mid-painting warm-up walk) but things progressed pretty well. I spent about an hour and a half on this one, which is a bit longer than usual for a small sketch but things do slow down when the clouds roll in. I finished off the foreground and touched up a few details when I got back to the studio, so add another 15-20 minutes.

Early morning, Narpyn. 

Plein air sketch. 30x25cm oil on board.

© Andy Dolphin
SOLD

I used a limited palette of ultramarine, burnt sienna and cadmium yellow deep. The lack of a true red meant that shadow tones and greys would retain an earthy hue rather than leaning toward purple. The burnt sienna under-painting shows through in a few spots too, including the warm glow in the otherwise-grey sky.

And here's the "oops, I packed up and almost forgot to take a location shot so I'll just lean it against this fence" location shot...

So now I've done eight paintings in the last few weeks and have been rained on six of those times. I think that's a record for me. Lucky I don't do watercolours.

I've checked tomorrow's forecast and apparently we're in for some more rain. So I guess I'll venture back outside and see what happens.

Cottage - plein air oil painting

I mentioned recently that I've found a new favourite painting spot. It's a farm, less than 10 minutes from home, with a history dating back to the late 1800s.

I've been given permission to do some painting around the property and have spent quite a lot of time out there over the last week and have taken a lot of photos since the weather has been less-than-forgiving and mostly not suited to painting outdoors. So far, I've managed to paint five times, and it's rained on three of those occasions.

On my first visit, I wandered around an old, derelict cottage and was captivated by its sunlit eastern face. I photographed it and studied the photos over the last week. I even did a rough Photoshop sketch of it.

Today we had clear skies again, so I headed out to the farm knowing exactly what I planned to paint. It was time to test my "contemporary impressionism" skills again.

So, without further ado, I bring you "Narpyn Cottage, winter morning"...

Narpyn Cottage, winter morning.
Plein air. 38x35cm oil on board.
© Andy Dolphin

At 38x35cm, this is probably the second-biggest plain air painting I've ever done and, at somewhere between 3.5-4 hours to complete, it took the longest, by far. I don't think it's finished yet, though.

Here's stage 1 - the under-painting...

This is a combination of washing-in and wiping-out. Although the idea is to keep things fairly loose, a lot of important questions are asked at this stage. Where are the major darks? What's warm, what's cool? Is it too centred, too high, too low? Why do people say painting is relaxing? Should I have taken up golf instead? The questions just keep coming – the same questions, every time. Some remain unanswered.

There's 15-30 minutes work here.

And here's stage 2, almost two hours in (I didn't know it had taken that long, but that's what my camera claims)...

By this time, the sun had risen pretty high and shifted across to the left, so the shadows had all changed. It was important to try and stick with my layout and not be tempted by what I was seeing in front of me. By the time I finished, the sun had moved far enough that none of these walls were sunlit.

Ordinarily, a thumbnail sketch is a useful reference for dealing with the changing-shadows problem but, in this case, I'd had the image stuck in my head for a week, so I didn't do a thumbnail.

I used the palette knife quite a bit in this painting - for adding and removing paint. That's a whole new world for me. Until this week, I've usually only used a palette knife for mixing paint or, more often, cleaning my brushes - or, sometimes, deleting sections of paintings, or deleting entire paintings. I still have to tame the knife, but this property will offer me a lot of opportunities.

I was exhausted, mentally, when I got home. So I had some lunch and a nanna nap. Then I got up, had coffee and went back for more before sunset. I didn't have much time so I almost literally threw this one together...

Evening, winter.
Plein air sketch. 34x30cm oil on board.
© Andy Dolphin

There's just less than an hour's work here, and much of that time was spent on the two sheds. Actually, most of it was probably spent on the white shearing shed. So many shades of "white"!

When I put the brushes down, the sun had set and the entire scene was in shadow. But when I turned around, the sky was a brilliant orange-violet. Five minutes later, it was all gone.

It was great to have a day with mostly-clear skies.

Bluff Knoll - Finally!

Bluff Knoll is the tallest peak in Southern West Australia. It lies in the Stirling Range and is about a one hour drive from my home.

Come this Monday, my family and I will have been in Mount Barker for eight years but in that time, I've been to Bluff Knoll only three times, and never for painting. I finally fixed that this morning.

I was up at 4:30am and, after cereal and coffee, I was out of the house shortly after 5am. I arrived at the Bluff Knoll car park around 6am.

We'd been promised a sunny day in the Great Southern but the Stirling Range creates its own weather and there was no shortage of cloud and a heavy veil of "atmosphere". Still, it was a pleasant, if slightly cool, morning so after scouting around for an interesting vantage point, I set up my easel and got to work.

When I began there wasn't much sunlight and I thought I was going to have to focus on the clouds drifting across the top of the bluff for interest. But as I was laying down my first washes, the clouds, mist and distant peaks took on a wonderful warm glow. There was my subject!

The light played hide and seek as I pushed on but I managed to get enough information down early on to capture the feeling. Here's the result after about one hour...

(Sketch for Morning at the Bluff. 28x34cm oil on board. © Andy  Dolphin)

I used a limited palette of just three colours, French ultramarine, permanent crimson and cadmium yellow light, plus white. This helped to move things along a little faster although I did have a few moments of trying to mix the right shade of reddish, yellowish, bluish green-purple.

The light began changing dramatically with more foreground being lit with each passing minute - and each passing cloud. Finally I had to tell myself to "stop". I told myself two more times before putting the brushes away.

Here she is on location...

You can see how dramatically the light was shifting with absolutely no sunlight on the mountain in this shot. Luckily these "very grey" moments were few and far between, though they at least gave my eyes a rest when they came as I was looking almost directly into the sun.

Hopefully I can get a better photo of the painting when it's dry.