Revenant

Starting painting of'703 HFA' 2017
oil on canvas 122 x 91cm

Available 

Revenant : an animated ghost or zombie believed to have revived to haunt the living.
Derived from the Latin word reveniens, "returning" 
The 703 HFA has been languishing up on stumps awaiting a restoration to past glory that will probably never happen.
This heritage wooden carriage was severely damaged in a tragic accident at Cowan on 6th May 1990, and has been sitting forlornly at the eastern end of the Large Erecting Shop in the Eveleigh Railway Workshops ever since. 

Starting painting of'703 HFA' 2017

oil on canvas 122 x 91cm

Available

When the steam locomotive 3801 was returning from the Morpeth Jazz Festival, it  struggled to climb the steep Cowan Bank, then stopped.

To assist gripping, sand was then applied to the track, but unfortunately this caused the signals to malfunction.

The signals apparently changed from red to green several times. After the signals had been green for a few moments, giving a false indication that the track was clear ahead, a CityRail Interurban passenger service entered the tunnel behind 3801 and crashed into the back of 3801's train. 
6 people lost their lives, including the driver of the intercity electric, and a passenger in the V Set's cab. An investigation into the crash suggested the handbrake in one of the carriages may also have been applied. 

'703 HFA' 2017 oil on canvas 122 x 91cm

Available

There have been sporadic episodes of restoration over the past 27 years, which were curtailed due to lack of funds, manpower or commitment. 
A restored carriage would be a symbolic triumph over the past tragedy, but this would be a difficult and expensive task.

The dented frame of the carriage has severe structural problems and the wheels in front of the carriage have ‘sharp flanges’ - extremely worn edges which are the railway equivalent of a car having bald tyres. 
The 703HFA continues to haunt the shed, more a revenant than a phoenix.

The transformation of the Large Erecting Shop into a running shed means that it has an uncertain future. 
More paintings of Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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Ghost Train

Ghost in the machine

Scar Tissue

Painting in the paint shop - The Green Room

The slow return from the fire

The fire within

Nocturne - painting Locomotive 3642 steaming

3642 steaming at night from the Large
 2017 oil on canvas tondo 31 x 31cm

'3642 steaming at night from the
 Large Erecting Shop, Eveleigh Railway Workshops'
 2017 oil on canvas 15 x 31cm

'Carriage and windows, night,
Large Erecting Shop'
2017 oil on canvas 25 x 20cm
Available

On Thursday 20th July the heritage steam locomotive 3642 made a brief nocturnal visit to the Large Erecting Shop, Eveleigh Railway Workshops.
Despite the biting cold and sharp gusts of wind, I managed to paint 2 small oil studies of 3642 steaming outside the shed at night, as well as an interior of the Large Erecting Shop, before my fingers finally became too numb to hold a brush.

'3642 steaming at night from the Large Erecting Shop,
Eveleigh Railway Workshops'
2017 oil on canvas 15 x 31cm
Available 

3642 was making this brief pit-stop at Eveleigh, before a historic journey to celebrate 150 years since the first regular passenger train travelled from Penrith to Weatherboard (known today as Wentworth Falls).

'3642 steaming at night from the Large'
2017 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm

Available

3642 was built for the New South Wales Government Railways in 1926 by Clyde Engineering and hauled passenger trains throughout NSW.
Originally painted black, it was painted green in the mid-1930s, but repainted black at the start of World War II.
It was withdrawn from operational service in September 1969, and moved to the NSW Rail Transport Museum until cracking was discovered in its firebox in 1973.

3642 was sent to Goulburn Roundhouse in 1979 to be overhauled and returned to service in November 1981.
In December 1994, 3642 was again withdrawn from service when the rear driving axle failed an ultrasonic test, and became a static exhibit at Thirlmere until restoration work began in 2006.
It returned to service in March 2008 and by the end of the year, the engine was yet again repainted green.

In July 2011, it was taken out of service for an overhaul before returning to service in April 2012.

'3642 steaming at night from the Large'

2017 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
Available

My first small oil study was a straightforward rendering of the locomotive, but I had also brought a small tondo (circular canvas) to experiment with a different sort of composition.

I used the huge and very sturdy doors of the shed to frame the steaming locomotive, and the tracks snake their way directly towards the viewer.

The night lights turned the steam into puffs of iridescent blue, mauve and rose. 
More paintings of Eveleigh Railway Workshops at my Eveleigh page in this blog

Related posts

Macdonaldtown - A Station without a suburb

Eveleigh- Industrial Heritage Artist at Work

ATP Open Day - Saturday, 25 Feb 2012
 Eveleigh paintings
The village smithy (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)
Time for Safety 
The fire within 
En plein air with street cred (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)
Watching the forge fires fade  .

Oils ain't oils- Painting Still Life in the Eveleigh Railway Workshops

A still life typically depicts inanimate subject matter. 

It was initially despised as the most lowly form of painting. But every still life is a memento mori.
Memento mori is Latin for “Remember that you must die”.
I've delved into the long tradition of the ‘still life’ genre, which celebrates the magic power of painting an arrangement of commonplace objects to reflect on ideas of mortality.
When captured in paint, they are imbued with a life beyond the ordinary.

"Vanitas” elements reveal the emptiness of material pursuits and futility of earthly ambitions.  

The Latin noun Vanitas literally means “emptiness” and the central theme in these paintings is the Christian view of earthly life and the futility  & worthlessness of all ambition.

I love to paint “useless” things from industrial sites, the minutiae of everyday life. There's a poignant quality in this “rubbish”, so trivial to most. These remnants provide me with an endless source of subject matter. There are no people in these pictures but their presence is always felt. History, memory and observation provide the bones of the story.

E130A Oils ain't oils 1 2017 oil on canvas 10 x 10cm

Available for sale  

These rusty old oil cans from the interior of the Large Erecting Shop in the Eveleigh Railway Workshops truly are symbols of transience. They will be discarded and thrown into the skip bin as soon as I've finished my canvases. I've won them a stay of execution with my paintings.

E130B Oils ain't oils 2 2017 oil on canvas 10 x 10cm

Available for sale 

They contained the necessary ingredient to lubricate engines to keep them moving. Literally, to make something go. 

And they went.

Locomotives won't be repaired and maintained in the Large Erecting Shop for much longer. The best possible future for it will be as a running shed where only exactly what is strictly necessary to run trains will be tolerated. All else will be relocated at best, or discarded at worst. If it doesn't become a running shed, Mirvac and Channel 7 are lurking just outside to finish it off.

E130C Oils ain't oils 3 2017 oil on canvas 10 x 10cm

Available for sale   

Behind the oil cans was a board with inscriptions "1/2 Nuts", "5/8 Nuts", "3/4 Nuts","7/8 Nuts", which always made me laugh. You don't have to be totally nuts to work her, just half.

E132 Oils ain't oils 2 2017 oil on aluminium panel 51 x 51cm.

Available for sale 

I've concocted different methods for reproducing variety of surfaces  by experimenting with painting on metal panels.
This works well with the rusty cans - I leave the metal bare of paint and only paint in the rust.

This technique pays homage to the distant past.

When light rebounds from a matte surface, the irregularites of the surface scatter the light. However when light strikes a smooth polished surface such as metal there is a gleam, shimmer or lustre which can even reveal the shape of the original light source. Medieval students of optics called the depiction of reflected light in a painting "splendour". Light was not only regarded as beautiful, but also deemed to be sacred. This quality of light was difficult to reproduce in painting. Early medieval artists would rely on the inclusion of reflective and precious metals such as gold leaf, until the development of oil painting in the 15th century allowed artists like van Eyck the ability to create the illusion of reflection by superimposing thin translucent layers of colour. 

The workmen trained in the Eveleigh Railway Workshops were master manipulators of metal, so in these still life paintings I am using both these artistic traditions to capture every nuance of their lost tools.

Related Posts

Shadowboard

Ghost Train 

Revenant 

Nocturne - painting steam locomotive 3642

38's are great, mate 

Charge your battery 

Scar Tissue

38's are great, mate

This is the big brother of the small square painting that I created in "Ghost Train"

I liked the small painting so much that I decided to paint a much larger canvas that would really evoke the atmosphere of the interior of the Large Erecting Shop in pin sharp detail. All the apparent chaos and clutter of a true workshop in all its glory!

This old office in the Large Erecting shop of Eveleigh Railway Workshops, had been used to store stacks of windows and doors waiting to be repaired to refurbish a carriage. It has a couple of old signs on its roof "Engine Shop" and "The Professionals", which I was told had been pinched from a local real estate agent!

It's ironic in more ways than one, because, whilst experts in their field, the people working on the restoration of 3830 were mostly volunteers.

In front of it are lathes, drills and boxes of rusting tools that obviously are many decades old.

The 3830 was put back together with the help of parts cannibalized from other 38 class locos.
The list of 38 class locos refers to the original source of particular items that finally ended up as part of 3830.

E129 '38s are great mate'
2017 oil on canvas 91 x 122cm
Enquiries

On the weathered sky blue boards are inscriptions in white chalk about its time of service.
"3830 18 years 11 months 4 days
Into service 27/9/49
Withdrawn 31/10/67 (Illegible) birthday 23 years
Cost £53,145/2/0 Basic Wage 4/8 11/20d/hour
Builders' No 170 40 hours £8/12/0 approx"

I've read worse poetry!

The scarred and half rotten boards also bear the postscript  "38's are great mate" written on them.

Related Posts

Ghost Train

This is how the light gets in

Ghost in the machine

Scar Tissue

Painting in the paint shop - The Green Room

The slow return from the fire

The fire within

Scar Tissue

Exploring disused manufacturing can sometimes be a bit depressing – all that decay, all those jobs that no longer exist, all that busy industry that has gone.
I have been painting in the increasingly empty Large Erecting Shop of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops, as they are being slowly stripped of all but the barest essentials,
leaving desolate floors and abandoned walkways.
Echos follow your every move, mimicking and daring you to make your presence known.

'Release' 2017 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm

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Painting is less documentary, more subjective,definitely slower and more labour intensive than photography.

However these qualities can be assets as well.

The painter has to select one image showing a definitive moment and yet implying others, to reveal layers of meaning that reward further viewing.

A bit like an onion. And sometimes it can make you want to cry.

I value the quality of authenticity, of being a witness.
This practice of painting on site produces a more genuinely felt memory of my experience and an understanding of the location’s properties and mood, providing me with a truer record of the colour palette than photography.

'Release' 2017 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
Enquiries

 

With the removal of so many items, I focus intensely on what remains. Instead of panoramas of the interior, I am working on a series of close ups of details I have previously overlooked, attempting to preserve what is left of the once chaotic jumble of relics of over 100 years of railway history.

The paint itself can give a feeling of the volume and presence of the scene being painted.
Texture such as rust, stains or water damage can be scraped back with a palette knife or engraved into the surface. The term for this is “sgraffito”.

'Release' 2017 oil on canvas 41 x 31cm
Enquiries

 

The colours and textures, crumbling render, faded pigments, verdigris, scrapes and scratches – the scar tissue that stand witness to moments in time and history, may be lost in the rush towards the future.

More paintings of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops

Related Posts

Ghost Train

This is how the light gets in

Ghost in the machine

Painting in the paint shop - The Green Room

The slow return from the fire

The fire within