We recently invited Clare Purser a plein air painter based in Brisbane to spend a week wintering at Haneena Hill 10 kilometres west of Stanthorpe. We first met Clare when she received the major prize during the Milburn Art Awards, a biennial national landscape painting exhibition held at the Brisbane Institute of Art.
The Haneena Hill environment compresses many of the features the Granite Belt is famous for, labyrinthine rock structures, escarpments and stands of Eucalypt and Cypress forests with high views to the east and southwest.
Clare Purser, gouache and acrylic on paper
Clare happened to arrive during a freezing southwesterly wind but managed to layer up and paint outside for part of her visit and for the rest shared one of our studios to process the atmosphere of rocks and forest. We quickly developed a rapport with Clare, good conversations about art at meal times and she willingly included herself in our routine of studio work into the night.
Clare travels widely for inspiration to many sites in Queensland and beyond, she accomplished many painting studies on her stay which she will likely develop into fully fledged painting to show at the Woolloongabba Art Gallery where she’s represented.
Drawing and painting workshop 9th and 10th of November 2024.
This workshop is an exercise in imagining our natural environment as diverse spaces. On the one hand, long-standing, village-like cooperative interactions between flora and fauna, on the other as riverine passages such as steep valley terrain abruptly influenced by the elements encouraging quickly changing life forms.
Participants will have the opportunity to make work in several different, but accessible natural settings. We have observed areas being created by wallabies who nurture certain grasses, rock rooting plants and lichens colonizing cliff faces, and other spaces in which organisms have formed observable alliances by creating protective habitats.
The assumption we bring to this workshop is that to perceive the forest as village we need to change our perception of The Natural from a world external to human social experience to a participatory one.
In general we experience a ‘theatre’ of social space in three significant ways, first we can be instrumental in acting on people and things, second we represent the social to ourselves through language (verbal, pictorial) , and third we have the ability to imagine the world differently.
As humans we lack other animals’ intuitive sense orientation in the world, so we are forced to rely on our capacity to remake, to imagine, to fantasize.
Anne Carson points out that that the full form of Descartes’ well known dictum, ‘I think, therefore I am’, is actually ‘I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am’. Carson’s commentary on the ancient poet Sappho highlights the geometric space of desire which ousts the stability of singular sense of self, explaining that in any passionate relationship between people and/or things in the world there two positions of experience, from the self who enters the scene, and from the self affected by it. These form a triangle with what is being perceived, whether as with Sappho, a lover, or something or someone in a more generalized situation.
The weekend workshop will consist of four three hour sessions on Saturday and Sunday morning from 9am to 12pm and 1pm to 4pm and with lunch supplied. The cost is $200 all inclusive. The property is located 12kms West of Stanthorpe, Qld.
To participate in the workshop you’ll need a range of drawing /painting materials and accessories (paper, water, rag, stool) that you are familiar with and can carry to the sites, distances from 25 to 200 metres.
If you are interested in attending please email Barbara at barbarapenrose3@gmail.com.
Our model Casey in some of the improvised poses she developed in and around the natural amphitheatre where we based ourselves for the workshop.
Our latest weekend workshop considered the figure in landscape from a notion of refuge, of the human form absorbed in the natural light and engulfed within the textures of vegetation and the rock flow where we based ourselves for the two day workshop.
We discussed a quote from Rilke :
… (one) will hear more of the powerful melody of the background, the other less. Many no longer hear it at all. They are like trees that have forgotten their roots and now think that the rustling of their branches is their power and their life.
We discussed transitioning the scene from its reality to a flat rectangle of paper; how space as continuity and in isolation are formed within pictorial space through conventions and inventions of language.
These themes activated by the natural surrounds and the energised poses created by our model Casey brought out some really interesting work from the participating artists who put their all into rising to the occasion. Here is a selection of the work they made.
We have four dates for workshops in the second half of 2023.
These workshops coincide with distinct seasons on the Granite Belt high country. Late winter sees the bush coming alive with native flowerings the air adrift with low scudding clouds under fresh winds. Late spring throws birds into the trees and a second stage of flowering in the bush. The air is crystal clear and the bush is full of sounds.
The first late winter offerings are on the weekend of the 26th – 27th of August and on the weekend of the 2nd – 3rd of September. The second Spring workshops are on the weekend of 28th – 29th of October and on the weekend of the 4th – 5th of November
On day one we will visually study and get to know a particular patch of natural landscape, on day two we will view this landscape with a model providing a human angle into the natural scene.
Workshops will comprise four three hour sessions beginning Saturday morning 8.30 am till Sunday 3pm. Artists should bring drawing and quick drying painting materials, choice of paper and brushes, water container and stool. The session sites are easily accessible within reach of amenities.
The workshops are held on our property 12kms West of Stanthorpe. Accommodation is not included in the workshop provision, there are plenty of choices for accommodation within easy reach, the closest areas to the workshop are Amiens, Broadwater, Greenlands, Glen Aplin, Stanthorpe.
If you are interested in booking a place please email Barbara at Barbarapenrose3@gmail.com. We are limited to 8 participants per workshop.
For further information regarding background and workshop payment please consult the pages on this site. We look forward to meeting you.
Our 2022 Workshops concluded on the weekend. While the natural environment of the granite highlands in itself draws participants we decided to continue an experiment begun in a previous workshop series, by adding a human element to the subject.
Danielle Rochecouste Kate Sunderland
On each of the recent weekends we provided models, a different one for each day. A discussion in the morning ascribed a character to the model while the particular landscape setting provided an individual scenario for the drawing session.
Lynne SamsonCandice Hooper Jane Hooper Helen Rowe
We’re interested in bridging a cultural and natural divide and developing stories of people in nature, stories, initially that have their origins in histories that haven’t been overrun by mythological constructs.
The Human element is intended to absorb the artist into the scene and to draw out stylistic choices based on cultural associations not stereotypically paired with scenic painting and drawing.
Carolyn O’Keefe Katie Yeowart
The results are encouraging, with artists finding resources both from within their repertoire of methods and from cultural experiences to apply in creating inventive pictorial works.
We will be publishing the 2023 workshop schedule early in the new year. All the best and thanks to all participants in helping to create memorable and meaningful events.
Deborah Hay Alice Cavanagh Deborah Norrie-Jones Peter Noakes Vicki Briggs
In developing the theme of our current workshops we ask – what is it that deepens a connection to landscape? Past events delivering their experience to the present can enable us to project a relational environment into the landscape.
We start from the idea that there are multiple histories embedded in the country. Visual culture carries threads of stories by style and mode of storytelling – the figure in the landscape can be a conduit for connecting threads flowing through time and space.
Specifically in the coming weekends we plan to have a different model on each day. we’ll present a storyline context for the day which will be divided into two sessions, each with a different angle into the day’s story.
Practical information for the weekend:
Materials – please bring a manageable array of your usual dry and wet materials for drawing and painting. Paper in book form or sheets A4 to A3. Bear in mind we will be walking into the landscape 100 metres or less for the practical sessions so fit it into a carrying bag. A low folding stool would be useful as ants are a significant civilization in this country.
You’ll be entering the bush so you will need protective clothing hat and boots. Please consult weather forecast to decide on necessary clothing. If the weather is really difficult we will be able to use the new studios which are situated in a natural environment with large windows into rock and forest views.
We ask everyone to come to the property at 8 – 8.30 am in order to organize for a 9 am start in the bush situation. Sessions will run from 9am to 12pm and 1pm to 4pm.
We will supply lunch so please let us know by email of your dietary needs if necessary. Bring a flask with you for hot drinks, we can supply tea and coffee with lactose-free milk.
We are ready to announce dates for our next drawing and painting workshops beginning late November. We had expected our studio building project to have been complete at the end of this month, it was delayed and its completion is not expected till late October. Given that tranquility and absorption in the landscape are a central component to the workshops the energies associated with building construction don’t fit the brief.
We are offering three weekends for workshops each with a maximum of 7 people on the following dates:
19th – 20th November
26th – 27th November
10th – 11th December
These workshops comprise a programme of drawing and painting the Human Figure in the landscape. The property contains dramatic stone hillsides, boulder formations and forested opportunities for developing tableaux with a human narrative to be introduced on each occasion.
We are currently unable to provide accommodation for workshop participants, please click here for further information on local accommodation.
To book your place in a workshop please email barbarapenrose3@gmail.com and for any further information not contained on the website.
The winter sun is warming the stone hillsides at Haneena Hill, with light darting through the stringy bark forests. We’ve got a good load of firewood and the house is well warmed by the fireplace.
By popular request we’ve pencilled in 2 weekends in July : 10th – 12th and 24th – 26th, one or both sets of dates could go ahead depending on the show of interest, several artists have so far booked in for the first one.
This workshop is themed with a human narrative, we’ll draw and paint the figure in a landscape both internal and external. A figure immersed in a narrative in a physical terrain. Ever since we were introduced to the landscape at Haneena Hill we’ve understood a human past both real and imagined with reminders of human activity occasionally found in the relic of a stone dam, or a ring-barked monolith. For this workshop we’re imagining a particular emotional scenario developing a narrative of life in the bush combining the unseen past with the visible landscape towards an imaginative outcome.
On day one of the workshop we’ll draw from the model in the landscape. Day two will be an immersive development of the content, detail and style of the drawings.
Please check pages for further information and contact booking
Our next workshop is on the 9th to the 11th of August, we’ve got in a load of wood to keep the home fires burning and we’ll have some great warming winter food. The sun is getting higher and we’ll expect the spring breezes to thrill the experience of the escarpments and being in the bush. For workshop details check the information pages on this site and contact us if you’d like to reserve a place.
Participants in the last workshop in June did some exciting work, and weathered challenges walking the terrain in the process of immersing themselves in the landscape.
Artwork by Deborah Hay
They refreshed their visual language with some strong drawing.
Artwork by Helen Rowe
Stared down the challenges of depicting winter forest light.
Artwork by Danielle Rochecouste
and catching the atmospherics of granite boulder volumes.
Our June workshop is fast approaching, with the clear winter air at this time of the year we’re using it as an opportunity to remember Les Murray, a poet piercing the depth of a rural experience in country far to the south of Stanthorpe.
This is a painting and drawing workshop, participants are encouraged to bring materials of their choice, we will also provide a selection specific to the weekend’s aims. The Haneena Hill homestead provides a warm and comfortable board and accommodation over the weekend.
This quote from Murray’s poem Equanimity sets the theme for the June workshop:
Fire-prone place-names apart
there is only love; there are no Arcadias.
Whatever its variants of meat-cuisine, worship, divorce,
human order has at heart
an equanimity. Quite different from inertia, it’s a place
where the churchman’s not defensive, the indignant aren’t on the qui vive,
the loser has lost interest, the accountant is truant to remorse,
where the farmer has done enough struggling-to-survive
for one day, and the artist rests from theory—
where all are, in short, off the high comparative horse
of their identity.
Almost beneath notice, as attainable as gravity, it is
a continuous recovering moment.
Please checkout reference pages on the website for information regarding workshop schedule and what to bring.
High Country Deep Time Drawing and Painting Workshops 