Hey Bella,
I really enjoyed reading your interpretation of Sidney Nolan’s “First class marksman” and what you thought it was saying about Ned Kelly’s status in the 20th Century. I think you have delved quite deeply into the painting and have highlighted some really interesting points. I like how you have interpreted Ned Kelly to be an isolated figure through the black amour against the delicately painted landscape. You have also highlighted how the armour is a flat shape and how this contributes to Ned Kelly being the focus of the painting. I think this is an excellent and observant point to have made.
The only improvements that I think could be made are perhaps in the sentence, “The contrast of the dark outlines of Ned Kelly against the sparse green trees and cloudless sky effectively depict the contribution of Ned Kelly to Australian landscape.” You could perhaps delve into what contribution Ned Kelly actually made to the Australian landscape. I feel like you were onto a good point and I would have loved to hear more.
There were also some simple grammatical mistakes such as in the sentence highlighted above you should have put “the contribution of Ned Kelly to the Australian landscape.”
You can consider the word drought-stricken to be hyphenated.
Also, in the sentence “The qualities of Kelly in the painting such as the wide eyes, and skinny arms” appears to have an unnecessary comma in a compound object.
Apart from that, I thought it was an interesting read and I enjoyed hearing your interpretation of this artwork. Good job!
Lili Braidner 