Tabla de contenidos para Issue 11 Volume 2 en Artists Back to Basics

Peter Norvill is no stranger to greatness – although he tends to prefer peace and seclusion at his picturesque grazing property in the Upper Hunter region of New South Wales. The Norvill family came to Australia by sailing ship in the mid- 1800s and established a farm near Murrurundi, where Peter still lives and works. Like many talented Australians, he discovered a gift for painting after many years of doing other things … but ‘other things’ for Peter were far from mundane. In his teenage years, he secretly took flying lessons at nearby Tamworth – which led to a passion for long-distance aviation adventures. Peter Norvill received international acclaim in 1988 when he became the first Australian pilot to fly solo around the world. This was accomplished in a single-engine…

MATERIALS Exercise 1: • Spare white canvas (it is an exercise). Titanium White• French Ultramarine Blue (or another warm blue)• Pthalo Blue• Cadmium Yellow Medium (or another warm yellow)• Burnt Umber There is always that compulsion to understand and to simplify the processes that go towards creating an image. As I’ve written in several articles in this magazine, I have a whole heap of systems designed to make the process easier. The test is though, whether or not those systems actually work. The scene that I was looking at was of those lovely fluffy patches of low cloud receding off towards the horizon. There was a marvellous sense of depth that was created by both the clouds becoming smaller as they receded off into the distance – but also the…

The concept of the Colour Study is to use it to perfect your painting technique and brush control as well as experimenting with colour mixing and matching. When you begin your final painting you will then know exactly what colour mixes to use, how to build up your watercolour washes to achieve the correct colour intensity and how to apply detail to finish off the painting. A colour study is preliminary practice painting and we know that practice makes perfect. Before you begin your final painting, it is highly recommended that you practice your painting technique first. This way, any mistakes are done in practice, not on the final work. The preliminary work that goes into the drawing and colour study is what makes a superb finished painting. The more…

MATERIALS • Canvas – approximately 2 x 1.2 metres.• Acrylic paints.• Grey paint undercoat (for the canvas). STEP ONE In recent times, I have used a squirt bottle tinted with a little paint to create a dribble effect. This time I used a very wet paint brush to do the same. I often have little idea what I want to paint to begin with. If I set out to paint a deliberate subject, I find I am too controlling and hence I will often make a mess of it. One day I discovered the ‘dribble’ method, and suddenly things fell into place. Instead of trying to paint something by intent, I let the dribble method tell me what to paint. It is like watching the clouds in a moonlit night…

Gregory John Brennan was born in Wellington in the central west of New South Wales, back in 1935. He has lived in Narromine for 41 years, and Brewarrina for 10 years. He has worked all over New South Wales in the construction and earthmoving industries. “The art teacher I had in high school persuaded me to sit a test advertised by the Art Training Institute of Melbourne, as I was winning quite a few prizes at local shows,” he says. “I won a commercial art course scholarship and studied Commercial Art by correspondence for two years. The course incorporated true life drawings, like those in comics, which were ‘the thing’ at the time. When it came to customer appreciation and the psychology of selling, however, I decided to go driving…

Line and wash or Pen and Wash as it is sometimes called, is a half way house between drawing and painting where both disciplines come together on the same paper, often with great effect, as a hobby, apart from my art work, l have started to collect ink wells and pens, not the very ornate desk top type but basic every day type, early school type dip pens and ink holders, and through this interest have discovered there are many ways and tools that can be used to make marks on a piece of paper, your only limited by your imagination. l’m basically a doodler at heart but do sometimes manage to expand my line and wash drawings into frameable art works, often as a result of quirky hit and…

GENESIS ARTISTS COLOURS “With Genesis you can just start painting each session without wasting time preparing your palette.” When Genesis Heat Set Oil paints were developed, they had all artists in mind, including artists who suffered with allergies from using the traditional solvent based oils, and users of acrylics who fought the quick drying times and the loss of that brilliant lustre and sheen found only in oils. Genesis Heat-Set Oils were developed many years ago by two professional artists living in Hawaii. They required an artists’ medium that had the highest light fastness and permanence rating available for archival qualities. It also needed to allow artists to be in total and complete control of their paint’s drying time. No matter what the climatic conditions were, it would need to…

I have explained the first two ways at length in previous articles but will briefly run through all three quite distinct techniques in order to put them all into context and then expand further on the 3rd way of drawing. Up until now I have really only spoken of two ways of drawing as far as actual technique goes. There is also a third way which is every bit as important as the two more commonly used methods and it’s time to spill the beans on it. The First Way- Sketching (off the shoulder) The technique used at the start of every freehand drawing to position and roughly shape the largest elements of the composition on the blank paper. The pencil is lightly held in such a way as to…

MATERIALS • Artists’ canvas.• Selected artists’ oils.• Reference photograph. STEP ONE Sorting through some art material, I found this small photograph depicting wheat loading in the 1920s. I thought I would bring it to life. I covered it with a sheet of glass and put a grid over it. STEP TWO I constructed a canvas (97 x 61) and placed a grid on it to enable me to enlarge my image. I sketched the picture onto the canvas with chalk, to get the impact of the composition. STEP THREE When I was happy with my drawing, I went over this with black and white watercolour pencils to define the finer detail. I added an additional team and a bag sewer, for better balance. I then went over it all again,…