At Leichhardt Centrelink

Girls in the dark

 

I was waiting for someone at the Record Crate, so I started drawing the crowd waiting for the night's show

Borrachero at the Crate

A metal band I chanced on at the Record Crate on Saturday afternoon

The Bridge from Milson's Point

 

After months (or what seems like it) of cold wet weather when its supposed to be spring, the sun finally has emerged so I went over to Milson's point station to do some more to this 

 

Blue sky after another afternoon on Milsons Pt station platform. Everyone who came along was really friendly, like Andy who took a photo of me and the painting and his son Jordan. Even the security guard on the cycletrack on the bridge asked for a look as I was leaving

 

A painting I started today at Milson's Pt station and hopefully can return without controversy to complete. The attendant saw me get off the train with my canvas and all she said was to stay within the yellow lines as I headed to the end of the platform to set up where I'm out of the way, and the view is spectacular.

Luckily I'd managed to get a composition going an hour or so later when some kind of railways authority/security figure showed up and seemed

annoyed I was painting without being moved on.After a bit a lady came down(I think she'd been asked to), the current attendant, saying she was worried I'd make a mess(I hadn't/didn't), or get in way, or drivers might think I was about to commit suicide by train.

I said I knew peak hour was coming, so wasn't staying much longer, but it would make a mess to not use the great pile of paint on my palette, and that the drivers going the other way had been getting out to comment on the painting, I said I'd be 10 mins. She was worried about the horde of schoolkids about to appear.

It was maybe 15 mins before I was done but she came and thanked me when I'd packed up, and got a photo of the painting with the view

Suicide by train is a thing, not a good one, a source of trauma and worry for drivers(my nephew is one). I was standing and sitting in a passenger area, keeping within the lines so I don't think I was doing anything to provoke those thoughts. Anymore than when I paint on the footpath near a big road, making sure I'm not in anyone's way(the safest place). Anyone who is contemplating
ending it all, please don't(seek counselling), and even more emphatically, don't use a train driver(or anyone else) as your suicide weapon, they don't deserve that.

Anyway once the paint dries in a few days I'll go back at some quiet time in the middle of the day and continue