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En plein air watercolour weekend with Gordon Dickson

In June 2022 I headed back to Yackandandah to spend some more time learning watercolours from Gordon Dickson, this time focusing on painting outdoors, en plein air.

My previous attempts at painting in watercolour with Gordon had been a bit hit and miss and to be completely honest, I hadn’t really practiced much in watercolours since. I’d been keen though to pick up some tips about painting outdoors from someone who actually did it regularly, so when Gordon announced that he would be holding a workshop over the Saturday and Sunday of the June long weekend, I jumped at the chance.

After all of the tumultuous events of 2021, the first half of 2022 had been a lot more positive, but also way more hectic. Not only were we 2 weeks into the move from Mount Dandenong to Axedale, we were also down to one vehicle (our little MX5 sports car), with our new 4WD that was supposed to have arrived in early April still on its way from Thailand, and not expected to be in our hands until late June. Added to that, it was the start of the ski season, with huge dumps of snow already promising for a bumper opening weekend, so traffic was busy and accommodation was very hard to come by.

In the end I headed off early on the Saturday morning with the MX5 loaded to the hilt and arrived in Yackandandah a little before 9. After coffees and introductions, a small group of 6 of us plus Gordon headed off to our first destination – the swimming hole at Alan’s Flat, just outside of Yackandandah.

My en plein air setup at the swimming hole, Alan’s Flat

I had created my own en plein air setup based on a video I’d seen on YouTube, using MDF board and a carbon fibre camera tripod, however unfortunately the specialty T-nuts that I had purchased for mounting the board to the tripod ended up being packed somewhere in the move of house and couldn’t be found in time, and the standard nut I used instead ended up working loose during this first session. Thankfully, part of my kit includes plenty of masking tape, which enabled some field repairs that were adequate enough to continue.

The morning was very cold and quite windy, which made working outdoors a challenge, but Gordon was able to convey enough information to us that we all completed a small painting for the morning. I was reasonably happy with my efforts for the morning and felt I picked up quite a few useful tips. Unfortunately a few of the original pictures I painted on this trip, including this one, got damaged by a leaking water container and ended up being thrown out as soon as I got home, however I repainted them as soon as I got back to the house, so I have included those versions here instead.

The swimming hole, Allan’s Flat

After returning to the studio to regroup and grab a bite to eat, we headed out again to a lookout along the road to Wodonga that gave a sweeping view of the Indigo Valley. The cold winds were driving across the valley and bringing the occasional shower, which made drying washes of paint very difficult, so the painting progressed very slowly. The main challenge though was choosing the subject matter – how to decide how much information to record from a very complex scene, and what to leave out. Some chose to concentrate on a more detailed representation of a small section of the valley floor, but for mine I elected to focus on the way the valley led the eye far off into the distance. The image here is the original painting from the day – the only one that survived the trip intact.

Indigo Valley from the Wodonga Road

That evening I stayed at the wonderful Rosewhite House B&B just outside of Myrtleford, where I could enjoy the view from the balcony that I have painted several times before. The following morning I drove through the drizzle back into Yackandandah, stopping to admire several scenes along the way but not willing to get out of the car to take any photographs due to the wet conditions.

Shortly after 9:00 am we were on our way back to the swimming hole from the day before, this time to paint a scene facing in the other direction, looking back at a farmer’s gate. With showers sweeping through again things were a bit tough, but at times the sun made a brief appearance and in those moments the shadows across the track were magnificent, and we all concentrated on those contrasting light and shade areas in our paintings.

Farm track, Allan’s Flat

By the afternoon the drizzle had cleared but a bitter cold front had moved in, with icy cold winds making being outside very uncomfortable. We headed out along the Myrtleford road and stopped to admire the view at one of the locations I had noticed that morning on my way in – I managed to get a few photos for future reference. We then headed up to a farm owned by a friend of Gordon’s and proceeded to set up on a hill overlooking the road and the valley beyond.

Roadside scene that I will have to paint someday

Unfortunately with the wind being as cool and damp as it was, I found it really difficult to keep my washes at a level where they could dry easily, and I soon found myself working at a big muddy mess. In the meantime I’d had some sad news from the new farm that the first lamb we’d had had fallen into the dam and died, so all in all I really wasn’t feeling up to it. I took a few reference photos so that I might attempt to paint the scene back in the studio at a later date, and I headed off on a three hour drive back to Axedale.

Scene from a farm on the Myrtleford road

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