Landscape Oil Painting Adventure in Queenstown, New Zealand 🗾 - Art & Photography

My plein air painting from Queenstown Hill.

Surrounded by majestic, snow-capped mountains, luscious forests and crystal clear lake Wakatipu. Queenstown is a paradise for landscape artists, and a great place to live.

This is part 2 of my blog post, My Landscape Oil Painting Adventure in Epic Queenstown, New Zealand

Image above; This is the photo I took when hiking up Ben Lomond in the snow, in Queenstown, New Zealand.

Outdoor 'Plein air' painting No.3! I painted this in the stunning Glenorchy, New Zealand with my friend @Samuel-Earp-Artist. Scenes from 'The Lord of the Rings' were filmed somewhere in this area!

'Plein air' painting outside in nature is so much fun. It's also extremely challenging, especially when it's ice cold! But you are 100% in the moment, and fully focused throughout. So you learn to ignore the cold, focus and do your best! (Until fingers, hands, toes and feet are numb, and you can no longer physically continue;) and then you are one happy artist whether you failed or succeeded. The early stages works-in-progress looking at The Remarkables, Queenstown, New Zealand.

That's me 'Plein air' painting looking out at 'The Remarkables' in Queenstown, NZ! Multiple layers of clothing required.

A close up of my 4th 'plein air' painting in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Canvas Panel 10x12

'Arctic' Plein air painting in Queenstown, New Zealand! The ice cold, early stage rough block-in at the lake front in Queenstown, with my mate @samuel_earp_artist

Back to the studio.

After a few plein air sessions it was time to return to the studio and try to apply what I had learned during my plein air painting with oils, onto a longer, more detailed studio piece from my own photo reference which I took with my camera.

The early stages of a new oil painting of Queenstown, New Zealand I worked on in my studio space @qtartsctr

Work-in-progress 2 (wip)of my NZ landscape oil painting and stopping momentarily to closely examine the interesting combination of paint, texture and reflections on my palette knife. As you do!

Wip 3 of my NZ landscape oil painting.

The legendary colour mixing method.

During my studio paining I took on the 'the legendary colour charts' in oil paint, using only a palette knife! A traditional Flemish method of teaching colour, this exercise is designed to explore all possible colour mixtures of my palette, and help me fully grasp what my colours can do when combined with each other and in different values.

My finished studio landscape painting of a local view in Queenstown. All I needed to do at this stage was put my initials down. Oil on Canvas 10 x 20"

A gallery artist for the first time.

Finally after completing a few paintings, I was able to put my work on the wall of the local Queenstown Art Center gallery to sell. It was a really nice moment to experience. But I knew at this stage I would have to keep working hard, practice and improve my skills.

I started selling these little paintings at a low price, and my first buyer from the U.S bought a little oil painting study I did of Queenstown for $70 NZD. This is a photo of my first few paintings on the wall of the gallery.

Back to the drawing board.

In no time at all I was back sketching ideas for the composition of a new landscape painting. This time it would be a painting of the great Mount Cook, Aoraki, which I visited earlier on a road trip.

Initial and developed composition sketches for my landscape oil painting of Aoraki/Mount Cook.

The final sketch for my oil painting of Aoraki/Mount Cook.

The work in progress of my Mount Cook oil painting.

The final piece. This painting I also put up for sale in the arts center corridor.

Mount Cook is a stunning and impressive part of the natural world to visit, and the highest Mountain Peak in New Zealand. Definitely worth visiting.

Plein Air Painting Part 3

Before I left Queenstown, I wanted to make sure I got a few more attempts at plein air painting complete! So I made sure to say yes to every opportunity!

I spent a couple of hours on this plein air painting looking at Bowen Peak in Queenstown New Zealand. My friend Sam took me there and painted with me and also lent me his pochade-box to paint with. At this stage all I could think about was getting my own plein air pochade-box like this one to paint with when travelling. Sitting on a rock and balancing my canvas can be fun, sometimes, but having everything set up like this is so much better! (and more professional of course). And overall it's a great experience, and people who drive by on the road sometimes stop, come and have a look and ask questions.

This is my plein air painting of Walter Peak and the surrounding mountains in Queenstown, New Zealand. I painted this just outside the Queenstown Gardens sat balancing on the rocks! I was happy with this one.

This was another little oil painting I finished. This started off as a plein air painting on the top of Queenstown Hill in NZ after walking up through the woods, but I had to bring it back to my studio work on it a bit more because I didn't have enough time on site before the light changed.

It's a real challenge getting out in nature and trying to record what you see accurately in a painting whilst still learning colour mixing, but I could feel the practice bringing me a little bit closer to improving. Also I had to sit on the rocks again without the top quality stand for the canvas for this one. Still a good experience, but much more difficult.

When the going gets tough, go plein air painting! I painted two little 180mmX100mm plein air studies in oils, this one looking out at Cornets Peak in Queenstown. Thanks to my mate Sam for taking me again on a day where I was struggling with something personal.

And of course I took my shoes off to get some 'earthing' in while painting!

This was the finished version of my 2nd plein air painting with a shot of the scene in Lake Hayes, New Zealand. I could have easily stayed here for a few more hours, but the sun was setting.

Plein air painting in Glenorchy, New Zealand! This area is incredible, jaw-dropping scenery in every direction.

And those were my final three paintings before I left epic Queenstown, New Zealand.

Steem rising, from Queenstown.

I was feeling extremely grateful and fortunate to have been living within some of New Zealand's finest natural surroundings. This was part of what I got to look at as I left my home and walked just a few feet up the road. Almost every day I would walk or run through the forests, and every now and then I would hike up the mountains!

We're not supposed to be locked up in concrete jungle apartment blocks, surrounded by wifi and totally disconnected to the planet, we're supposed to be out there, in and part of nature. Go for a walk out there in silence, without headphones. Put your bare feet on the ground. See what it does for you. And if you feel creative and a little inspired...

Go plein air painting!

Thank you to all for reading, commenting and upvoting! 🗻🌳🙏