Nine Mile Creek (tributary of Stephens Creek, Broken Hill)

I painted this scene on a scorching summer’s day, oblivious of the hot weather. This is one of many outback landscapes that I painted during holidays, when I went home to Broken Hill from boarding school in Adelaide. My parents would drive me to a remote location with my art equipment and a flagon of water, picking me up at the end of the day with my new work.

I loved being at one with nature in this peaceful wilderness, with its stark environment and vibrant colour contrasts of grey saltbush, red soil, yellow grass, and the clarity of purple hills outlined on the horizon. I painted spontaneously with rapid brush strokes to capture the scene in the changing light.

At 16 years, I had not yet learned how to paint a sky with depth. Instead, I painted a flat even tone of blue, like a curtain. Later when I visited Hans Heysen, he explained how to achieve perspective in the sky by painting the densest blue directly above and gradually lightening the tones and softening the hues towards the horizon. Likewise with clouds, the colour contrast is greatest directly above, gradually becoming muted into the distant horizon. Painting clouds pure white near the horizon flattens the scene by bringing them into the foreground.