Tabla de contenidos para Issue 25 en Creative Artist

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Birds of a Feather

Born in 1965, Frances McMahon has been passionate about illustrating Australia’s native birds since age five. Indeed, it was at this tender age that one of her paintings was selected to be included in a children’s art exhibition that toured the world. When asked what was the initial spark that ignited her desire to paint birds, she remembers accompanying her father on long but enjoyable bird watching walks. Though it was occasionally a struggle keeping up with her father’s long strides, she was nevertheless always thrilled to identify and “tick off” another species. She sold her first painting (a commission of a kookaburra) at around age 14, and had a small trade during year 11 and 12, duplicating album covers for those that wanted their favourite pop group immortalised in…

Birds of a Feather

With Camera in Hand

Creative Artist|Issue 25

With Camera in Hand

“I don’t remember every photo I’ve taken, but I do remember the ones that signified the completion of another level of learning.” During my early years, my relationship with photography could be defined as rocky at best. Early cameras were of limited quality, though I did manage to capture some of the best reds and yellows that light pollution could muster. If memory serves me correctly, one of my first rolls of film, a 24-exp Kodak, came back with around 17 red and yellow contemporary variations, four blurred beyond recognition, one beautifully focused Dutch angled portrait of my school shoes and two unblurred, relatively straight photos. It would be encouraging to think that I fell in love with these two photos and that they were the bud that blossomed into…

Tenderness

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Tenderness

Step One I grid both my reference photo and my watercolour paper into 16 rectangles and draw freehand with a Fine or H Staedtler Mars 780 thick lead mechanical pencil. The grid lines keep me from getting too far off base, and the slightly hard pencil won’t smudge as much as softer pencils. Just avoid pressing too hard or you could create depressions in the paper that will trap the paint later. Step Two I want to keep this whole painting delicate and soft, with little bits of light dappling throughout both the background and foreground, so I deliberately keep my colours fairly pale and muted. I don’t want the yellow-greens, in particular, to dominate over the pale pinks in the flower. But I still want that sense of sunshine.…

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Works on Paper: Hikayat

Green Art Gallery, Dubai recently held Works on Paper: Hikayat, an exhibition that brings together more than 50 works on paper by Modern Arab artists including Khouzayma Alwani, Mahmoud Hammad, Adham Ismail, Jamil Molaeb, Fateh Moudarres, Nazir Nabaa, Aref El Rayess, Khaldoun Shishakly and Seif Wanly. Taking storytelling as its main theme, the exhibition brings together works that offer a glimpse of drawing’s potential to make cultural, social, and political proposals or stories, through diverse formal processes. Drawing is a medium that offers an intimate and open field for imaginative elaboration, in which concepts and ideas can emerge and change with relative ease. Uninhibited by the obligation to create a finished and independent object, as is traditionally associated with painting and sculpture, drawing as a medium lends itself readily to…

Works on Paper: Hikayat

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Toothed Paper for Soft Pastels

Certainly scratchboard done the way I do it also resembles drawing. I used to be an artist who plugged away at oils, acrylics, or even watercolours and never made any of them work properly for me. In fact, I have huge admiration for anyone who can use a brush and make it ‘talk’. I would post my work online on art forums to get critiques. Most people were kind but I certainly wasn’t setting the world alight. However, one day a passionate pastel artist suggested I try soft pastels, thinking my fairly detailed work would be a good fit for the medium. Well, I thought back to the massive, bold strokes that some pastel artists use and concluded that I couldn’t do what they do. My friend told me that…

Toothed Paper for Soft Pastels

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Materials

• Paper: I generally use Arches 300gsm NOT paper, taped to a craftwood board using good quality (Painter’s) masking tape. (I do not stretch the paper unless I am going to do a very wet-in-wet painting.) Good paper is essential. • Brushes: The best you can afford. I now have two Winsor and Newton Pure Squirrel Mops sizes 6 and 4; Alvaro Castaonet NEEF 4400 No. 8. I find I can do almost all my paintings with these three brushes. Prior to this I used Taklon and hair brushes and a Hake brush. Sizes 12, 8, 6 and a Rigger sufficed. • Pigments: I use a variety of brands, primarily Sennelier and Winsor and Newton tubes. I squeeze out into a large deep-well palette which I spray lightly using a…

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Heatwave

“Heatwave” was a commission for a client in Canada who happened to see a painting on my website of two Eastern Rosellas (“The Happy Couple”) and wanted a painting just like it. I have never repeated or copied a painting, but in this case I suggested to the client that we could reverse the original composition and change the background. The client was open to this, and so work commenced. Using a program similar to PhotoShop, I created a rough Final digital Step composite using my photos. I didn’t have any photos of Eastern Rosellas, so the bird on the left was a photo of an immature Crimson Rosella, but I used the paintbrush tools to change him into the correct species. The rosella on the right is simply “cut…

Heatwave

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation

The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF), established in 2008 under the Artistic Directorship of Dr Gene Sherman AM, is a philanthropic enterprise dedicated to providing an innovative forum for contemporary visual practice and presenting work by internationally renowned visual practitioners from Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. The Foundation was built on Sherman Galleries’ 21 years of commercial exhibitions and artist representation (1986 – 2007), a glimpse of which is provided in Twenty: Sherman Galleries (1986-2006). SCAF works closely with internationally renowned artists in commissioning installations and exhibitions that energise and respond to the gallery’s four-part complex, which comprises: • a large exhibition area • a mini ‘out-site’ space • a versatile theatre annexe • a Zen garden The multipurpose site and cutting-edge technology enable the presentation of…

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation

High-end Compact & Mirrorless Cameras

Creative Artist|Issue 25

High-end Compact & Mirrorless Cameras

As the name mirrorless implies, there is no mirror in these cameras. The traditional layout of the DSLR with a mirror, prism and viewfinder has been altered, allowing the light to go through the lens directly onto the sensor. This saves on a lot of bulk and weight. Rather than looking through a standard viewfinder you are looking at a digital image from the sensor. Although marginally slower, there are some advantages to shooting this way, such as seeing the live effects of settings in real time. Many of these cameras have interchangeable lenses and the ability to work with accessories such as external flashes. As sensor and lens technology gets better, high resolution images are possible at smaller sizes. While the higher-end DSLR is still number one when it…

It’s the colours and textures

Creative Artist|Issue 25

It’s the colours and textures

I’ve travelled extensively, pursuing subject matter to capture and translate onto canvas. I’ve covered thousands of kilometres on foot and have slogged my way through the Barrios of Spain, the medinas of Morocco and across the provinces of France, Cuba and Vietnam. My paintings reflect my passion for colour, texture and formal composition, and the excitement of travelling to new countries. I am interested in the dislocation of European architecture to foreign lands, such as Cuba and Vietnam, and the dramatic contrasts between the buildings, both grand and humble, and the people who inhabit them. It’s the colours and textures of the man-made that intrigue me. The crumbling render, faded pigments, verdigris, scrapes and scratches - the buildings scar tissues that stand witness to moments in time and history. Using…

Believe in Yourself

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Believe in Yourself

Drawing has always been my favourite pastime, for as long as I can remember. By the end of primary school I had decided that art had to be a major part of my future. I won a local Art Competition in Year 8 which further solidified that determination, and in 1965 I moved to from the picturesque small Adelaide Hills town of Echunga to begin specialised Secondary Art Teacher training in Adelaide at the SA School of Art and Western Teachers College. The three-year course was intensive, the lecturers hard task masters and the Diploma in Teaching Art was the icing on the cake! I happily returned to the Adelaide Hills as the sole Art Teacher in one of only a couple of high schools in the area at that…

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Materials

• 2000gsm Rising Museum Board • Winsor and Newton Artist’s Quality watercolours and gouache: Cobalt, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, Raw Sienna, Paynes Grey, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine, Sap Green, Cadmium Lemon, Van Dyke Brown, Oxide of Chromium • Aerocolour Liquid Acrylic • Winsor and Newton Series 7 watercolour brushes – sizes 000, 0, 2 • Tracing film • Masking fluid • Airbrush • Compressor • Masking film • Scalpel • Photo reference • Computer…

The Tangible Presence of Light

Creative Artist|Issue 25

The Tangible Presence of Light

My mother was a great gardener, and flowers have always been a source of joy and inspiration for me. They seem to be put on earth to lift our spirits with their pure, clear colours, lovely fragrances and intricate patterns. And they have the ability to transform light into something miraculous. I am passionate about watercolour for similar reasons: the colours are pure and transparent, allowing the light to shine through them from the white paper as if lit from within. So for me as a watercolour artist, flowers are the perfect subject, and capturing the inner spiritual light through flowers has become my passion. For almost all my life I have been interested in creativity and consciousness. What makes a person creative, and how do creative people see the…

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Capturing Emptiness

Born in England, Sukhi received a traditional education in sculpture and life-drawing at City and Guilds Art School in London. Due to her naturally philosophical and curious nature, Sukhi had already traveled in India several times, where she felt an immediate and deep affinity with the culture and traditional art, and, as a result, her degree show was based on the geometry and symbolism of the Shiva lingam. Disillusioned by the London art scene, after graduating with the prize for sculpture and a cash scholarship from Madame Tussauds, Sukhi chose to immerse herself in the Indian culture for a year, at the end of which she settled, for the next 12 years, in Kathmandu, Nepal. It was here that Sukhi embraced Buddhism, spending several years travelling intensively in Tibet, Bhutan,…

Capturing Emptiness

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Mojito y Che

Travelling to exotic destinations has always provided me with inspiration for my work. Two months of travelling through Cuba, staying with families in Casa Particulares (private homes), has provided a wealth of subject matter. I wanted to tie in an Australian landscape image with the body of work I have been currently creating. The resurrected rail yards in Redfern, Sydney, have provided me with a great industrial backdrop for this painting. Step One My first step is to stain the canvas with a base colour in preparation for drawing up the image. Here I flooded the canvas with a very thin mix of Raw Umber, Raw Sienna and Red Oxide, applying it with rags and 10cm brushes, constantly working the colours into each other. Once dried, I have scummbled a…

Mojito y Che

Creative Artist|Issue 25

It’s all in the detail

Step One On a sheet of Bank paper (similar to copy paper) the same size as my intended painting, I do a simple line drawing. I trace the drawing lightly on to my watercolour paper. Tracing eliminates erasing any pencil lines on the watercolour paper, which can damage the paper’s surface. Step Two Apply masking fluid to retain the foliage areas of the trees. Allow to dry thoroughly. Dampen the areas to be painted first – sky: Cobalt wash, add a small amount of Paynes Grey to the lowest line. Grassed area: Perylene Green and Sap Green, distinguishing different areas for the two. Use a very weak Raw Sienna to the right of the foreground tree butt. Allow to dry. Remove masking fluid from the foliage area of the trees.…

It’s all in the detail

Scones are On

Creative Artist|Issue 25

Scones are On

I’m never quite sure what to expect when visiting a new studio, but often get a mental picture long before I get there, for while many studios these days are more than just places to set up an easel and shut out the world, the common denominator is often disarray and confusion. ‘’I’ll shift that out of your way,” springs to mind, or does: “I put that somewhere, may be under those papers, or it could be in that drawer’’ sound familiar to you? I know it’s a lot like my own studio at times, and many of the studios I’ve visited “expect it will turn up soon”. Arriving at my feature artist’s studio today, I heard: “Hello Derek, come in, hot scones and coffee are in the corner, help…