Acrylic painting of Winton plains from escarpment viewpoint, North Queensland.

To travel out in North West Queensland is to be amazed at a panorama of desert, dust and incredible views from clifftop places.  When I went out to see the dinosaur footprints, we stopped at a lookout. 

This was the inspiration for my painting, which features a stockman, his horse and faithful dog, standing on the cliff, with a spectacular view to the horizon. Truly, Australia is the land of wide open spaces.  The artwork was completed on board, with a thin wash technique to portray the arid outback landscape.  

Far North West Queensland outback painting by Alan J. Benge

If you've ever travelled in the outback of Queensland, you will have noticed that once you get past Longreach, there are large stretches of countryside that could well be described as "driving across the surface of the moon."
However this arid, dry country has a distinctive individuality that makes it unique.  Admittedly, it is as flat in places as a billard table. But if you can gain a viewpoint from a hill or rocky outcrop, you will be rewarded with amazing views.
It is one such view that gave me the inspiration to create this outback landscape in acrylic. I found a suitable hill on my way out to an ancient dinosaur quarry near Winton.
 I wanted to convey the sense of a huge, dusty plain, with a relentless sun on the horizon.  To give the foreground more impact, I used silhouette shapes of a stockman, his dog and horse, in solid contrast to provide interest in this part of the composition.  A limited colour palette was used, mainly warm browns, beige, with patches of red.  The background hills are a hazy blur of ranges receding into the distance. 

Outback pen and ink artwork from Alan J. Benge

In this whimsical pen and ink drawing, I have depicted a cowhand, coming to town after hours in the saddle. Colour washes were added to highlight the buildings and main street of this Australian outback town.
I like to think that the horse is having a laugh at the bow-legged appearance of its rider !  On the right hand side of the picture, I've drawn in a typical old Aussie pub, with other similarly bow-legged cowhands looking on.  In creating this composition, use was also made of splatter for textural effects, plus highlights with coloured pencils to achieve some of the more subtle graduations in tone. 

Symbolic outback acrylic painting by artist Alan J. Benge

When I painted this composition, I restricted the palette to simple, mainly black and red simplified shapes on a white background to give a symbolic effect.
There is an element of counterchange in the trees on the right, and big splashes of colour with twirls, spirals and stripes work together to make up this stylized landscape.
I enjoyed creating this picture, and feel it has possibilties for further artistic exploration in the future.
In other words, I hope to paint more like it !

Outback painting of farmer with drought-parched landscape, Australia

In this acrylic rendition I pictured an outback farmer standing at the gate of his drought-stricken property.
 I used a limited palette of earthy oranges, reds, with black highlights.
I used a red tone on the farmer's shirt because I was attempting to have a warm colour in the foreground which would make it stand out more.
The dirt track leads the eye up to the house and windmill in the distance.