Watercolourist Christine Porter has spent the past 40 years painting shearing sheds.
Story Kirsty McKenzie Photos Ken Brass
Christine Porter frankly admits she barely knew a fleece from a jumper when she studied teaching at Armidale, NSW, in the heart of fine Merino country in the early 1980s. The Lismore-based watercolourist has since built her career around the wool industry and is celebrating her 40th year as a shearing shed artist.
“If there hadn’t been an oversupply of teachers when I graduated, shearing sheds and sheep yards would probably never have figured in my life,” she says. “I caught up with one of my college friends at the end of 1983 and she’d been working as a governess in northern Queensland. I thought that would solve my employment problems, so I bought a little yellow Laser and headed to Plain Creek station, south of Charters Towers, where I was a governess for Robyn and Reid Russell’s children.”
Christine estimates she has now painted more than 120 sheds from the top of Queensland to Tasmania. “I usually spend several days to a week at each shed at the invitation of the owners,” she says. “I’m often commissioned by women who no longer live on their family’s station as it’s important to them to have a record of their childhood homes. I take photographs and make sketches and then I’ll work for months afterwards on works of the shed exteriors, yards, interiors, or anything that catches my eye.”
This story excerpt is from Issue #158
Outback Magazine: December/January 2025
