My latest painting is nearly finished. Peranga, where Chris and I stayed with my niece and family in January, is a little country town on the Darling Downs, out West from Brisbane. There are only a few houses, none of them modern, and very few cars. Many years back the mines closed and the once thriving population is now down to about thirty, according to my niece’s husband, who is the policeman – the only policeman in a large area of small, widely spaced towns. The place is isolated – that’s for sure – which is probably why it retains the charm of old Australia, the idyll that one imagines and which artists paint. I love the wide horizons, the big skies, the windmills, the barbed wire fences and the warm gold light cast by the lowering sun.

Finishing is the hardest part of any painting. The sky came into being in one day and the rest of the painting has taken about three weeks.  Should I complete the scene by adding a group of Galahs (also known as rose-breasted cockatoos), perhaps feeding on the grass or maybe perched on the fence posts? They’d probably look more picturesque on the fence but is that too clichéd? I want the painting to be the depiction of a landscape I love, maybe with some wildlife, rather than a picture of birds in a landscape. I’ll ponder some more on it… Any suggestions?