How a Hike Turned Into a Painting Practice

I didn’t start hiking because of my art. I’d never really considered it much, until a friend from Germany came to visit and mentioned she was doing the Routeburn. She asked if I wanted to join. At the time, I couldn’t make it work—but the idea stuck. I kept thinking about it. Eventually, after too much time inside during Covid lockdowns, I booked it. I was craving open space, fresh air, something to look forward to. I had no idea then how much it would end up shaping my work.

That hike became the foundation for my 2022 Trails collection. A series of original paintings exploring the beauty of time spent outdoors, surrounded by giant mountains, clear alpine lakes, and moss-carpeted valleys. It was an ode to a great walk.

I haven’t stopped thinking—or talking—about that corner of the world since. It’s kind of become a recurring theme in both my hikes and my paintings.

In 2023, I followed it with a small Milford collection, based on sketches, reference photos, and half-formed memories from hiking the Milford Track and visiting Milford Sound. I’ve absolutely loved my time in this incredible area.

The mountains follow me home—the scale, the quiet, the feeling of being out there. That kind of stillness, that kind of space—it settles something. It stays.

I try to hold onto that feeling, and bring it back into the work. Not the exact view, not a perfect scene—but how it felt to stand in it. The quiet, the colour, the awe.

That’s what I’m really painting most of the time. Like in my piece from the Routeburn—Above the Clouds—which started from a photo I took near Harris Saddle. I wasn’t trying to recreate the view exactly, but the feeling of being right up in the sky, held between the peaks and the light. It came together fast because the memory was still so vivid.

Not everything becomes a finished piece right away. Some moments land on the page instantly. Others sit in my sketchbook for months, half-formed. Some are quick thumbnails capturing the shape and scale of a place, or how the land is put together. Others are layered, messy explorations—colour, texture, movement—done in pencil, pastel, sometimes leftover paint. They help me figure out what stayed with me, and what I might want to say with it later. Like Kepler—it’s all there in my notebooks, I’m just still working out how I want to capture it.

But those places keep finding their way back in—in the palettes I reach for, the light I try to get just right, the compositions that feel wide and breathing.

It’s not just inspiration—it’s rhythm. It shows up in the way I pause before painting, or the colours I’m drawn to without realising why. In how I work slower after a hike—more focused, more open. It’s part of how I work now, whether I mean to or not.

Honestly, I hope it never stops.

(P.S. I still have a few pieces available from the Routeburn and Milford work in my shop if you’d like to take a look.)