Dave Sparkes

Dave Sparkes
Burning Palms Beach, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
31 x 53 cm

Another gem in the Royal National Park, another beautiful headland. A headland adds something special to a beach, like a kind of bookend, and completes an otherwise unfinished long stretch of sand. From a compositional point of view, they are also the perfect focal point for a seascape. This beach is very remote, and like most Australian beaches, looks as it would have looked thousands of years ago.

Dave Sparkes
Approaching Storm Over Cosy Corner, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

There is something unique about sunlight and stormy weather juxtaposed together. As a long time professional surf photographer, I get very excited about this sort of light, and as a painter I love it just as much. And I don't have to photograph the moment there and then to record it, I can set it down later. Usually it is post-storm sunshine that has that very crisp, "just washed" look about it, but this scene of an approaching storm has an air of anticipation that I was drawn to. The couple walking towards the storm are a bit mysterious, too. Do they know what they are walking into? Are they seasoned storm chasers or just oblivious?

Dave Sparkes
Arthur's Bay, Magnetic Island, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

Magnetic Island has some of the most spectacular coves and beaches in Australia. I stopped here for a while on a painting/photography/surf trip around Australia with my soul mate Tracey Turner, and I was mesmerised by the beauty of the stoney headlands. The smooth granite boulders are a delight to paint in watercolour, lending themselves perfectly to wet in wet washes and textural effects.

Dave Sparkes
Back Beach, Angourie, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 70 cm

"Back" beaches are what surfers call any beach situated to the south of a prominent headland, and are vital to a surfer's sanity during the relentless summer north east sea breezes, since they offer protection from those winds and keep the waves smoothly groomed. On the north coast there are not as many of them as we would like, but those we do have are much loved. In the foreground, there are a few "beach tumbleweeds", a variety of spinifex. Along with pig face, marram grass, and the ubiquitous morning glory, they are synonymous with beach front sand dunes.

Dave Sparkes
Back Beach Cabarita
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
31 x 49 cm

Another beloved back beach, another uniquely shaped headland, along with all the features I like to paint: nicely cut away, eroded eastern bluff to catch the afternoon angled light and shadow; wet sand reflecting the headland; and a smattering of lovely boulders to use as interest and compositional enhancements. In any case it's just a beautiful headland.

Dave Sparkes
Blinky Beach, Lord Howe Island, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
21 x 31 cm

Lord Howe is so spectacular it is hard to believe it is located off the NSW coast. It's as though one of the Tahitian Islands was hitched up and towed into position there. Unfortunately it is very difficult to obtain permission to live there, you virtually have to be born into it. It's not just a painter's paradise, it's a photographer's paradise too. Actually, it's anyone's paradise.

Dave Sparkes
Blueys Beach Looking towards Seal Rocks, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 50 cm

This view from North Blueys Headland is special. It is, however, dangerous to paint in the sense that there are potentially too many focal points, so I have painted it many times, experimenting with how to achieve the real feeling of the view without too many distracting elements. This one seems to work, using South Blueys as the focal point. I especially like the voluminous feeling of the two middle ground headlands.

Dave Sparkes
Boat Beach, Seal Rocks, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
31 x 53 cm

I love the last rays of afternoon. The raking sunlight seems to bring out contours and reliefs that are barely discernable under more overhead lighting conditions. I am also fascinated by the way wet sand that, although it is in shadow, can pick up reflections from a sunlit area and take on a glow, as if it is trying to hold onto the sun as long as it can. I guess we try to do this too, moving to sunny perches late in the day when the beach is changing its mood and getting ready for the cool evening.

Dave Sparkes
Bondi Beach, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

This was painted as a commission (although this original was retained by me) for White Horses magazine for their Equinox issue, in which all photographs had to be made during the day of the autumn equinox. I suggested to the editor a painting on that day instead, and since I was in Bondi I sat on the beach and painted this view of the place I grew up in, North Bondi. It was a beautiful, warm, still day, and I tried to convey that by having figures melt a little into the sea and sand.

Dave Sparkes
Booti Booti National Park, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

Painting "en plein air", which means outdoors and on site, is very different to studio painting. You can't spend the time with finer details that you can indoors, so it is great training to force yourself to simplify and distill a scene. As with many impressionists, for me light is the dominant force in a painting, and really the less brush strokes, the less detail, and the less I overwork a painting, the better it will be. Once the message is clear, I try to make myself stop.

Dave Sparkes
Broken Head Morning, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

The zone where ocean meets land is a place of intense interest and energy. It is usually a place of great beauty too, with headlands, waves, birds, crabs and little washed up novelties of the sea. It is in constant flux, and I used lots of water with the pigment to paint that wet sand, to try and convey the endless, lively variability of shimmer and reflection that goes on as waves roll in, dry out, and are replenished by more waves. It feels right to use water to paint water.

Dave Sparkes
Broken Head Shadows, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 50 cm

Beaches, particularly surf beaches, are special places. In a sense they are the edge of our comfort zone, the transition between safe land and the unknown ocean. Despite the notion many of us have of being at ease in the ocean, “at home”, it is a fantasy. In reality we play on the fringes for a little while, then scamper ashore to safety. We are wanna-be dolphins, and we look longingly at their lives in the sea from our dry and dusty dwellings.

Dave Sparkes
Brunswick River, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

Whenever I encounter a fairly still body of water, like a lake or slow flowing river, I seem to judge it first by how accessible it is for swimming, whether I happen to be free to swim at the time or not. Sometimes the water can look inviting, but there may be reeds or very long grass or a steep grade that makes it difficult to get in and out. That's too bad, and this part of the river had all 3 of those obstacles. So as a form of retaliation I painted it instead. (I happened to be free at the time.)

Dave Sparkes
Bungan Beach, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 22 cm

The beautiful eroded headland at Bungan picks up tangential afternoon shadows and just cries out to be painted. I wanted to really simplify this scene as far as I could, while still hopefully achieving an air of reality. That simplified impression really calls for a calligraphic flourish of brush strokes, particularly the beach shadows, which lose all of their energy if they are laboured over or painted too slowly. It's like writing your signature slowly - it just dies a slow death.

Dave Sparkes
Cooper's Shoot, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 30 cm

There’s a certain crest in the road at Cooper's Shoot, just up the hill from Byron High School, which reveals a wonderful dip and distant rise as you drive over the top, heading south west. As usual there is nowhere safe to pull over and get a photo of it, let alone paint it. So being fed up with that, I finally sneaked a phone photo from out of the car window as I drove one afternoon. I didn't know if it would be much use, but when I got home I loved the mood and visual lead in of the road and painted it soon after.

Dave Sparkes
Cosy Corner Sea Mist
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 70 cm

I live not far from this Tallows beach trail, and the afternoons always seem to create a mysterious haze which almost hides that lovely headland. To accentuate the atmosphere, I painted strong, crisp shadows and high keyed foliage in the foreground, as I felt the contrast would enhance the feeling of distance between the foreground and the misty headland.

Dave Sparkes
Creek Near Chillingham, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

Watercolour is at its best when it paints itself. Dropping clear water or pigment into a wet wash - at the right moment - can produce the most beautiful effects. Sometimes they are happy accidents but the artist has to create a scenario in which those accidents can happen. Experience and intuition tell me when something serendipitous could be looming and I try to go with it and play it as I feel it. Overworking washes will create muddy gloom, and having the discipline to not push a winning game too far takes years. I particularly like the glowing blue zones within the darker green reflections.

Dave Sparkes
Cylinders Beach, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 70 cm

North Stradbroke Island is one of the special Queensland sand islands, and Cylinders Beach has the characteristic crystal clear water and pure white sand of those islands. It is also a great place to paint as the beach faces in a favourable direction for the morning sun to rake across the cove, creating a maze of shadows and highlights.

Dave Sparkes
Dunsborough Beach Trail, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
34 x 24 cm

I want to be walking down this trail right now. If there's no surf, fine, I'll swim in that sparkling ocean. Once I cool off, I'm going to sit on the beach under a big old umbrella and paint whatever is there.

Dave Sparkes
Flat Rock Beach, North Bendalong, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
24 x 34 cm

This painting is really a study of contrasting light. Using high keyed tones for the sunlit ocean and distant coastline, I placed them alongside deep, almost abstract suggestions of foliage and wet sand reflections. To increase this effect I immersed the foreground in strong shadow, to create a sensation of cool shade on a hot afternoon at the beach.

Dave Sparkes
Flores, Indonesia, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

The Wallace Line is an invisible boundary that marks the transition of geography, flora and fauna between South East Asia and Australia. It was first postulated and described by Alfred Wallace, naturalist, explorer and the man who independently came up with the theory of evolution years after Darwin had thought of it, but before Darwin had published it. He graciously gave the credit to Darwin all the same. Although part of Indonesia, Flores is south of the Wallace Line, which effectively puts it more into the physical realm of Australia than Asia.

Dave Sparkes
Gap Road, Ballina, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 70 cm

I often drive around hinterland roads, looking for interesting scenes to paint. When I find one, however, it can be very frustrating when there is nowhere safe to pull over. This invariably happens when I spot an amazing outlook, usually in concert with a frantic tailgater, oblivious to the stunning vista and anxious to hurry me along. I'll sometimes end up parking quite a distance away, and occasionally, as in this case, I'll see something unexpected during the walk back to the view that prompted me to stop in the first place. Happy accidents aren't restricted to actual painting.

Dave Sparkes
Hawkesbury River, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

Rivers are such mysterious things. They seem to flow for much longer than you’d think it would take to drain off the rain from the highlands that feed them. They are certainly living entities, and like any living thing are much more than the aggregate of their parts. I like them best when they are still, or at least not obviously flowing. At those times the reflections reveal themselves in ever changing light shows.

Dave Sparkes
Lennox Head Reflections, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 70 cm

Lennox is a very distinctive headland, perfect for painting as it is unique but not toobizarre looking. I realised early on that over the top subjects might work well for photography, but in a painting they can easily look overdone. Just as well in this case, as the reflections are the real focal point and too much emphasis on the headland could create a conflict of interest. That is also why I simplified the headland to a fair degree.

Dave Sparkes
Misty Creek, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 50 cm

This isn't a creek that's all that inviting to swim in. It has a sort of swampy, foggy vibe, almost on the brackish side of still. But the haziness was attractive, especially since being lit from behind, it has an almost cinematic, horror movie feeling.

Dave Sparkes
Moonee Creek Beachside, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 50 cm

Another study of feathered afternoon shadows and washed out, late sunlight. There is something about the deep tone of foreground, still water that I find fascinating, and it is a challenge to attempt to pitch the tone correctly to achieve the illusion of deep water.

Dave Sparkes
Moonee Creek, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 30 cm

I lived at Moonee, near Coffs Harbour, for a few years in the 1980's. Back then I was mainly drawn to the ocean and the surf, but more recently I have become attracted to the creek, which runs into the sea there and helps create the sandbanks we surf. While it can be windy and rough a few hundred metres away at the beach, the protection of the river red gums and mangroves means the creek is often tranquil and still.

Dave Sparkes
Neilson Park, Sydney Harbour, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

Sydney Harbour is the most beautiful harbour in the world. It has somehow retained its aura despite 200 years of European abuse, and in fact is cleaner and more full of fish than it was 50 years ago, thanks to a concerted effort to bring it back from it's earlier tribulations. I grew up in Bondi Beach, just over the hill to the south of here, and Neilson Park was always a serene sanctuary on southerly wind days, when the beach was blowing a gale. Particularly so in winter, when the hordes were absent and the nth-west facing cove created a sun trapped micro-climate that made it feel like anything but a Sydney winter. As a bonus, it also has waves during rare, huge easterly swells. Since the surf breaks outside the shark nets, as kids we were thankfully oblivious to the healthy Bull shark population in the harbour.

Dave Sparkes
North Boomerang Beach, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 50 cm

North Boomerang headland is known locally as "The Sleeping Dog", because it has a profile a little bit like a sleeping beagle. It is actually a very beautiful, complex series of shapes and textures and colours, and is a real challenge to simplify, which as an impressionist is one of the keys. It is one of the aspects of painting that lured me away from photography; indeed the realistically perfect renderings of early photography gave rise to impressionism in the first place. Why paint ultra realism when you can take a photo? For me, a painting that evokes a feeling of real life with well placed suggestions of real things is way more powerful than a photo-realistic painting, as technically demanding as that is to do.

Dave Sparkes
Rainbow Beach Trail, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 40 cm

During the day, in clear weather, the rainforest is a place of shadow and sun; dappled light is the default ambience, whether early morning, midday or afternoon. Trails open up the light a little more, but are rarely devoid of those wonderful high contrast patterns, almost leading us like road markings, enticing us to keep walking to see what lies around the next bend.

Dave Sparkes
Rainy Day Near Mullumbimby, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

Sometimes bad weather can be a very strong visual element. To paint such heavy fog and mist in watercolour is a treat, and the fun of it is in working out how to fade a scene out like a movie dissolve. I am devoted to transparent watercolour, so I have to use almost pure water in the distance, adding pigment steadily as I move to the foreground. Sounds straightforward, but I have ruined many more than I have achieved!

Dave Sparkes
Rocky Creek Dam, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 70 cm

As a lifelong surfer, I have always been drawn to the ocean's vitality and presence; it seems so much more dynamic and alive than any inland waterway. Rivers, creeks, lakes and dams have a more subtle mojo, and rivers can certainly be as dangerous as oceans. Dams always invoke a certain sadness in me, however. Knowing they have flooded what used to be a living valley makes me ponder what lost world is hidden down there, submerged forever. I wonder if the trees that escaped the flood due to their higher positions can sense the fate of their fallen friends?

Dave Sparkes
Seal Rocks, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 50 cm

There is something about foreground foliage framing a coastal view that adds so much to the beauty of the scene, particularly when there is a real diversity of species. As a photographer I've always loved manipulating my position to improve compositional elements, but when painting you can move actual things instead. You can easily shift a tree or shrub – or mountain - a little to the left or right to get it just how you want it. That's a little bonus of creating your own world.

Dave Sparkes
Seven Mile Beach, Pacific Palms, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
31 x 54 cm

I feel this painting really captures what I was going for, which is the feeling of that sultry, steamy East Coast summer afternoon with the possibility of late thunderstorms. Any trees are a bonus shade provider, giving you a little extra time before you go in for the next cooling swim. Enjoy the day while you can, as those possible storms are already dropping rain out to sea.

Dave Sparkes
Shelley Beach, Pacific Palms, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 30 cm

This wonderful little beach faces north-west, and is one of the best swimming beaches in Australia. On howling south-easterly days it is a retreat, and when you are at its eastern end, your line of sight shows only distant beach, hills and mountains and water, but no open ocean horizon. The effect is that of an immense, enclosed rock pool, which is only enhanced by the calm shoreline.

Dave Sparkes
Shelley Beach Trail, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
33 x 23 cm

Sometimes - and for some reason it always seems to be during early autumn - the east coast beaches light up in such beautifully rich colours that it's fun to just go to town and paint that flamboyant version of the day. Of course there's a fine and precarious line between over the top saturation, Instagram style, and rich, bright colours that you can actually live with on your lounge room wall.

Dave Sparkes
South Boomerang Beach, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

Before I moved to Byron Bay, I lived in Pacific Palms for around 15 years. The natural beauty of the area is in its variety of beaches and coves, and the headlands all have a unique energy about them. They all seem to have certain times of day when they really shine, and as a shadow addict I love it when that late sunlight rakes across them and brings out their form so dramatically. I spent years surfing right in that corner, studying the headland from my surfboard and wondering how I would ever be able to paint it. Then one day I squinted my eyes and saw the design as a stylised, eccentric geometric form. I kept that image in my head and eventually painted this late at night in my studio. I feel it is one of my more successful paintings.

Dave Sparkes
Spooky Suffolk Park Trail, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
31 x 51 cm

The prevailing winds on the east coast persuade many trees to grow in a certain direction; the trees distort into some quite tortured shapes, as the winds demand. The result can be quite bizarre, like an oversized variation of bonsai technique, performed by an omnipotent bonsai master with very little compassion, but a great eye for design. The shadows work in harmony with these distortions to create a distinctly gothic vibe.

Dave Sparkes
Sunrise Over Cape Byron, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 70 cm

Painting into a blinding back light, the French "contra jour" as the art world puts it, is a great challenge that I have attempted, and failed at, many times. In watercolour, at least traditional transparent watercolour, known as the English method, white pigment is never used, except for very sparing, occasional touches. The lightest tones are just pure, untouched paper. So you have to plan for this and preserve it during the painting process. The tricky part is choosing tones that, when arranged around this area of saved white paper, will by comparison create the illusion of glaring sun. Obviously mere paper can never be as bright as sunlight, so it is an ongoing challenge.

Dave Sparkes
Cape Byron Sunrise with Cumulus, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
30 x 40 cm

Another contra jourview of Cape Byron, from a similar viewpoint to Number 5, but with a different sky. The Cape is such a prominent geographical demarcation zone, it feels like the coast south of there is very different from the coast north of there. It even changes direction radically, more than 90 degrees, creating entirely different weather on either side.

Dave Sparkes
Tasmania, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 50 cm

I don't usually paint many waves, other than impressionising them in seascapes. I don't want to be a "surf artist", even though I'm a lifelong surfer and an artist. Painting surf can get a bit kitschy, and in any case for me surfing and painting are separate art forms. This scene had an aesthetic that I was taken by, however. The symmetry and pattern of the perfect surf seems to function in the composition as a lovely design element for it's own sake, independent of any surfing sensibilities.

Dave Sparkes
The Pass, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 50 cm

In a way, The Pass is the life force, the mojo of Byron. It is a playground for people aged from 2 to 102, and it is the ultimate southerly wind shelter. It can get overrun with humans, but it somehow endures and never loses its natural charisma. It must have been a place of great importance, reverence and joy for the traditional owners, the local Arakwal people. I painted the island without the current steps and viewing platform, as I felt a temporary man made deck would detract from the feeling of timeless, peaceful haze in the distance.

Dave Sparkes
The Royal National Park, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 70 cm

The Royal National Park is Australia's oldest National Park and the 3rd oldest in the world. It is a precious sanctuary, located close to the CBD of Sydney but still basically a wilderness. It is one of my favourite places, and having grown up in Bondi, was very accessible as it is only an hour’s drive away. As kids we used to get dropped off there during school holidays to camp and surf, and weeks later we'd be picked up by our parents in a rather feral state. The Lord of the Flies kids had nothing on our exploits. This view is from the bluff at North Era Point.

Dave Sparkes
Tomewin Road, Near Natural Bridge, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 30 cm

The mountainous country up near the NSW-QLD border is spectacular, and the lighting is usually dramatic. There is such a mix of mountains and valleys all piled in together, that no matter the time of day, the sun is always hitting a valley at a nice angle, or hiding behind a sheer bluff. I wanted to get that hazy silhouette of a backlit distant mountain, and I feel this painting succeeded in that respect. I love the feeling of glare in this picture.

Dave Sparkes
Wategos Beach Looking West, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 50 cm

There's something about wet sand that really lends itself to watercolour. The wet-into-wet technique is perfect for rendering it in a way that when it works, seems to look so … wet. There are occasionally some happy accidents, but you are really flying by the seat of your pants. Timing is so critical in watercolour, and there are periods when a wash is drying - but still damp and dangerous - when any dropping in of pigment or touch of a brush would ruin the wash, and probably the whole painting. But while a wash is alive and still receptive to the addition of pigment, the adrenaline is flowing, and you can get a “here and now” rush that is intense.

Dave Sparkes
West Australian Beach Trail, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
40 x 30 cm

I love depicting trails, sometimes with an unknown destination, but other times it is nice to show a glimpse of something inviting at the end, like a white sand beach and sparkling ocean not far off.

Dave Sparkes
Wollumbin Viewed from Captain Cook Lookout, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
50 x 70 cm

It seems appropriate that Wollumbin should be painted from the Captain Cook Lookout, since Cook was the first white man to describe it, from way out at sea. (Although he called it Mount Warning, a chilling prophesy for the indigenous people of the region.) Wollumbin dominates the skyline from almost anywhere in the Bay, and always seems larger than it actually is from that distance. Whenever I paint it, which is often, I usually make it bigger in proportion than it really is. This feels right, perhaps not for the sake of actual visual accuracy, but because that's the impressionyou have when you experience it in real life.

Dave Sparkes
Wollumbin From Near Uki, 2016
Watercolour on Arches 300gm cotton rag
70 x 50 cm

Another major challenge to simplify, this scene was a real stunner. I wanted to create the feeling of mist and mystery, and to convey the sheer majesty of that sacred mountain. Some of this painting was unplanned. Sometimes that happens, which is risky because generally you need a solid plan for a large watercolour like this. But intuition can't be underrated, and when a rush of blood nudges me to try something on the fly, I'll often go with it. I've wrecked paintings that way, but I've also ended up with paintings that wouldn't have happened if I'd been too rigid in my approach.

Illumination

February 3 - 15 2017