Whitewall Galleries

This is in Harvey in Western Australia. The sun had set behind me, leaving everything in deep shade. But the sunlight was still hitting the bank of trees high up in the distance, lighting them up to such a brilliant orange that they looked for all the world like a far-off bushfi re. I did all the foreground, sketched in the bright orange background and then began to put in the mass of branches at the top. Then I started to think about what my old teacher and mentor Hayward Veal told me. He’d suggested that instead of trying to paint trees and branches on top of the sky colour, you paint everything dark, then put in the sky and the spaces in between to reveal the trees and branches. I followed his advice and It worked.