Tabla de contenidos para Volume 13 Issue 2 en Artists Back to Basics

I am a retired pharmacist with interests in painting, photography, chess, tennis, badminton, lay preaching, music et cetera. Married with two adult daughters and two grandsons, I have been interested in photography since I was given a 127 Brownie camera by my mother, when I was nine, and have been photographing ever since. As for painting, I did an hour a week in the fifth form. At the same time, my best friend was drawing such magnificent horses I thought, “I could never match that!” So I did no more painting for several decades. Much later I developed an interest in filming and made animated films (puppets) and documentaries. In 1984 one award I received was in Australia’s “Ten Best on Eight” for a movie: “More New Zealand Birds”. I…

I first began painting in the early 1970s – a great time for emerging artists. I had just returned to Australia after spending 10 years of my youth in England with my mother and stepfather. I had a baby and young child, and was looking for some form of work that could be done from home. So when I was reunited with my natural father after my 10 year absence it was fascinating to find that he had become a professional artist and was making a good living out of his art. He was very well known in the ‘70s – ‘80s, and living a rather exotic lifestyle on his boat, moored in Sydney harbour. Coincidentally, at around the same time, I met a young woman who was also painting…

Born in 1990 and raised predominantly on a farm in the New South Wales countryside, and now residing in Tasmania, Meaghan’s family raised an extensive variety of animals, and occasionally raised and rehabilitated sick and injured wildlife. This inherent relationship and connection to animals developed a deep love and admiration for them, inspiring Meaghan to explore many animal drawings as a child and through to adulthood. During Meaghan’s years on the farm she spent many weekends exploring the countryside by horseback with her mother, witnessing many aspects of nature. Memories and experiences from this farm inspire many of Meaghan’s animal portraits. The Rainbow Lorikeets that would squeeze through the chicken wire on the bird aviary and steal the food within have been a great influence for her, inspiring several Rainbow…

Art in one form or another has always been a part of my life. During my school years in Melbourne I loved doing projects that involved a lot of drawing and maps. I think most of my marks came from the ability to have good looking books and projects. My family moved to Brisbane when I was 16, and this is where I worked, married and had my two wonderful sons. During a visit to an art exhibition at McDonnell and East in the city, where my mother was exhibiting her ceramics, I met some painters who each week got together for a painting class at Carina. They kindly invited me to join them. Pastel artist Les McDonough was their tutor. I remember being so nervous the first day, wondering…

STEP ONE I decided not to include as many blossoms as in my photo. Instead of a dark blue sky I opted for a light tint, merging by wet wash with a pale green. This was done after first drawing in the main features with care. I liked the gnarled appearance of branches and used several colours to suggest this. STEP TWO The frilly “collar” of a tui can be tricky with either negative painting or white strokes on black. So I decided to put some curled strokes on the paper with a latex masking fluid. I have found it wise not to use your best brushes for this. STEP THREE The black of the bird is painted over the gum marks, and when the paint is also dry these…

STEP ONE On roughly gessoed canvas I drew in the main shapes using a green and brown hard pastel. Using the pastels allows changes to be made easily by wiping out with soft cloth if needed and can easily be painted over. STEP TWO Modelling compound was applied with a palette knife over the ground area to give a textured appearance. When dry, I dropped Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber and Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) over all areas, letting colours merge and mix on the board. To help this process I sprayed water randomly. The textured areas helped to give this effect. STEP THREE Next I painted the rocks using Cobalt Blue, Phthalo Blue, Naples Yellow Light, Unbleached Titanium, a touch of Cadmium Yellow and Magenta. Phthalo Blue and Burnt Umber…

Teacher’s Pet You often need more than just a simple graduated wash to paint a convincing and interesting sky, and once you start thinking about ‘’The heavens above’’ the possibilities soon become limitless, In my last article (don’t turn the lights out) we talked about how the foreground shadows will move slowly as the day wears on, and how important light and shade is when painting a convincing landscape, so today I’m looking at the source of that light ‘’the sky’’ often restless while at other times tranquil, a never ending kaleidoscope of loose shapes or distant stars, that you could paint from the same spot 3 or 4 times on the same day and have a completely different sky to work with, not that you necessarily have to paint…

The closer you are to the subject, the steeper the diagonal lines will be, as the vanishing points are closer together. ONE POINT PERSPECTIVE – LANDSCAPE Perspective creates the illusion of three dimensionality on a two dimensional surface. When fences, roads or buildings appear in the landscape, an eye level line and vanishing point is required so the correct perspective is represented in the scene. The Eye Level line is simply the line that is level with your eyes. The Vanishing Point is where all the angles from fences, roads and buildings converge. To determine the Eye Level Line, hold a pencil or ruler horizontally directly in front of your eyes, at a distance of approximately 30 cms. Where the line appears on the scene is the Eye Level line.…

The first few techniques described in part 2 cover taking it to the enth degree with the eraser strip and the rest about doing the same with the pencil. Cleaning House This is the term I use to describe the act of extremely carefully cleaning/clearing all extraneous graphite from the area all round the small area of the drawing you are currently working on in preparation for the next specific task you have planned with your needle sharp pencil (figure 1). It applies from an area smaller than a match head, right up to a whole part or section of the drawing, usually one side (always the light side) of an outline or feature. The only way to move forward productively from the initial sketching and rough drawing stages is…

Established in 1887, Bendigo Art Gallery is the largest regional gallery in Australia, presenting a dynamic temporary exhibition program alongside highlights from its extensive permanent collection. The Gallery has experienced monumental changes in recent decades, with major redevelopments providing generous contemporary spaces for exhibitions of national and international significance, and an array of balanced and inclusive public programs, events and educational opportunities for visitors of all ages. The city of Bendigo is firmly positioned within Australian history as a major area of gold mining activity during the early 1850s. It was due in no small part to this period of wealth and prosperity that the Gallery was founded, encouraged by a groundswell of public interest and reliant on donations and private philanthropy. Now owned and operated by the City of…