This is the last painting from Nimmitabel. My memory of place intertwined with a drawing on site and an exploration of colour and shape. I often start a painting with it flat on a table’s surface so that I can generously cover the surface with colour that is applied quite thinly and watery with a large watercolour brush. This is when I lay out the basic shapes of the composition before the canvas is placed vertically against my easel and worked up with brushes of different sizes and texture. I like the beginning of the painting to show through all the way to the finish, and for the feel of the initial drawing to remain in the painting. When I was drawing, it was the lines and shapes made by the forest on the hill, the stand of bare poplars that I remember being lit by the sun, the shapes in the sky of clouds and sunny weather. This is all remembered when looking at the source material, the drawing. The composition is born in the drawing.