I started painting quite young. I used to paint in oils to begin with, but I got an attack of lead poisoning from it and a lot of trouble with my finger, so I gave up painting in oils and I’ve never painted with them since. I always paint now in gouache.
After World War I, I went to the Slade School to study art. I was there for about three years.
I used to sketch from nature a good deal but I don’t do that now at all. Things gradually develop. I like to have them hanging on my wall cooking, and in time, they grow by themselves.
Painting to me is quite a mystery, and I really don’t know how I do it, but just work at it, that’s about the only thing. I use any colour I can get at the local store, hardware store. Mostly I use powder colour, and I mix it with polyvinyl acetate. I live in my studio, and any time an idea crops up, I try to paint it, no matter whether it’s in the middle of the night or what time.
I take a very long time over my paintings, I’m afraid. When I first came here, there were about 10 acres of pine trees round the place where I built my hut in the middle of them, but the bushfires have cut them all down, and now, I’m afraid, there are just a few round the house.
Painting to me is something of a tightrope act; it’s between the representation and the other thing – whatever that is. And it’s difficult to keep one’s balance – I don’t know.
