These two oils began to take shape after pieces of frottage, that is rubbings taken from part of the lake bed, were incorporated into a larger composition. The 3 pieces of frottage in the large painting titled Soil Types at Lake Mungo, 2017, consisted of absorbent printmaking paper and graphite for the rubbing and gesso slurry in which crumbled pieces of soil partly adhered.
The oil painting process back in my studio happened in stages beginning with a washy layer building up to an opaque surface but leaving dribbles and wet in wet random texture suggesting erosion and staining of the Mungo lunette through rain causing red dusty soil from hill nearby to seep through the dunes.
In the smaller painting I tried to express another version of this phenomonon not as close up but the way that the dune was situated in a context where the whole landscape was under stress from the climate. I applied the paint more impasto using a trowel and making the paint and landscape textures compatable.