In the shadow of the Bridge -Night Observatory Hill

Today's painting on the deck gallery is a nocturne painted from Observatory Hill.

O15 Night, The Rocks from Observatory Hill
2000 oil on canvas 84 x 112cm
Available
I've often painted the Rocks and Millers Point from this vantage point.
When I used to teach art classes, I'd give everyone a map of the best spots to sit so they could avoid having to include the Blues Point Tower!

O15 Night, The Rocks from Observatory Hill
2000 oil on canvas 84 x 112cm
Available

This view looks straight down Lower Fort Street where I have also frequently painted the heritage terraces, the Garrison church, the Harbourview and 'Hero of Waterloo' hotels.

Some of this collection are on my Miller's Point page in this blog.

It's a postcard perfect Sydney Harbour scene during the day. but at night the shadows make it evocative and mysterious.
The tales from the rowdy and sometimes sinister era of the Rocks 'Push' don't seem to be quite as distant at night!

O15 Night, The Rocks from Observatory Hill
2000 oil on canvas 84 x 112cm

Related Posts

Vivid

No Place like home

Tie a yellow Ribbon

Sydney Bus Museum - painting Daimler doubledecker

Today's painting on the deck gallery is a portrait of MTT Daimler CGV6 112 at the Sydney Bus Museum in Leichhardt. It has been under restoration to operating condition since 2016.

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

It's had a rough life.

It was one of 15 Daimler doubledecker chassis ordered for use in Sydney. However they were rejected because their 4.95m chassis didn't meet the required specifications of 5,33m. 
Then they were sold to the Metropolitan Transport Service, Adelaide. The 54 seat bodies were then built in Granville, and driven overland to Adelaide.

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

After being in service in Adelaide until 1960, no 112 was sold to a cattle station in the Coober Pedy area of South Australia.

In 1990 it was recovered for preservation - and driven over 1,000 miles back to Sydney!

It might have been too small, but it's tough!

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

I painted this on site in the Bus Museum at Leichhardt, and some of the volunteers are in the background.

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

  

BUS11 Restoration of Daimler doubledecker

2017 oil on canvas 61 x 31cm

See more of my bus paintings

The Manly bus, Sydney Bus Museum

No 'glamping' on Cockatoo Island

This is a painting of the Utility crane in front of Sutherland Dock, Cockatoo Island.

CK36'Cockatoo Island- Crane, Sutherland Dock and the escarpment'
2006 oil on canvas 75 x 100cm
Enquiries

For the last decade, the public has been allowed to visit the island, but when I painted this in 2006, it was still off limits.

The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust was frantically fixing up the infrastructure to be able to open it to tourists. I would travel by barge at the crack of dawn from Mort's Dock with the other workmen.

CK36'Cockatoo Island- Crane, Sutherland Dock and the escarpment'
2006 oil on canvas 75x100cm
Enquiries

In the afternoon, I had to make sure I didn't miss the last barge back to the mainland, or I'd have to spend the night there.

Now there is 'glamping', but back then there were no facilities at all! No tents, no shelter - I occasionally spent the odd night in a tunnel, which was creepy. There wasn't even drinkable water & we all got terribly sick until we learnt to bring our own water!

CK36'Cockatoo Island- Crane, Sutherland Dock and the escarpment'
2006 oil on canvas 75 x 100cm
Enquiries

20 years before, I had painted on the island, near the end of its life as a working shipyard.

Related Posts

Painting the industrial past on Cockatoo Island

More paintings of Cockatoo Island

Isolation Gallery- Walsh Bay

Today's painting featured in my Isolation gallery is from over 20 years ago. It shows the redevelopment of Walsh Bay Wharves.

W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'

1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

I was 'Artist in Residence' at the Woolloomooloo Fingerwharves during their redevelopment & refurbishment in the late 1990s. Many of the same construction workers later worked on the transformation of Walsh Bay Wharves a couple of years later, so they inherited me as 'Artist in Residence'.

I painted the derelict, fire-ravaged and soon to be demolished Wharves 6-7  from the interior of Wharf 8-9.

The green netting and bright yellow boom contrasts with the red brick and weathered timber of the wharves.

W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'

1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

I can't believe how much this area has changed since this painting!

Barangaroo has replaced the East Darling Harbour Wharves, aka 'The Hungry Mile', one of the last relics of Sydney's Working Harbour. 

The residents of Millers Point have mostly been relocated, & the area almost resembles a ghost town.

W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'

1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

More at my WALSH BAY WHARVES page on this blog

 

Paintings of a passing Port 

 

The last of the Hungry Mile 

 

Barangaroo - tabula rasa