Table of contents for Issue 11 in Creative Artist

For as long as I can remember, I have had a keen interest in animals and art; drawing, tracing and cutting out pictures was an important pastime. As the years passed, I continued to develop a strong interest in art, so after leaving school I went to TAFE and became a Show Card Ticket Writer, which led me into the world of advertising. Next was marriage plus kids, and for me the inevitable animal menagerie. It was these animals that helped nurture my keen interest in photography, assisting me in developing a large reference base that has grown over the years. I dabbled in small art projects along the way, and when I became a Family Day Carer, my art and craft aspirations grew. When we moved to Queensland, the…

I can never remember a time I did not draw or a time it was not encouraged. Even as I took to sketching on walls as a two year old, my mother’s markers were replaced with pencils and the walls replaced with paper. At the age of 12, my grandmother took me along to her oil painting classes at Burwood’s Woodstock centre, where, under the tutorage of Hilda Grinder, I learnt valuable lessons on perspective as well as light and shade that I would carry into my work two decades later. At the age of 13, two of my works were entered into a community Art Competition in Five Dock NSW, placing first and second in the Oil Landscape Painting category. Unfortunately, school teachings were not a fit and so…

Born in Brisbane into a RAAF family, Kim spent her earliest years constantly on the move. This nomadic life led to many hours drawing and crafting, which in turn led to her love affair with art and ‘bower birding’. During her holidays, Kim would spend many hours collecting shells with her Aunties on the Sandgate foreshore. These shells later became crafted jars and trinket boxes. Many years later, Kim would return to this seaside town to raise her children and ultimately to open her own studio gallery. Kim’s years in high school helped ignite her love affair with all things arty, but her opportunity for further education was halted due to family commitments that required her to leave her inspirational hub in Melbourne and return to her home state in…

The Late Riser Steve Lopes is a figurative painter with a deep concern for placing the figure in the landscape. The dramatic narratives of his works summon the potent force of European history paintings. In his poetic new series – The late riser – many of the figures are Lopes’ relatives, and the landscapes they inhabit are the Italian islands from which his migrant family hails. After spending time with his relatives during a number of recent painting trips in Italy, Lopes returned with a compelling exhibition that taps into the emotional world of both the immigrants who left their place of origin and those who chose to remain at home. Lopes writes: “My family lives on both sides of the globe. As I travel between Australia and Italy I…

Materials List • Archers Watercolour Paper – Smooth 300GSM A3• Acrylic Paint – Golden Artist Colours:• Titanium White• Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue• Ultramarine Blue• Cadmium Red Medium Hue• Black Pens:• Artine 70• Artline 725 Step One Sketch in your image with your pens in fluid motions – no need for hard lines or abrupt ends to your pen stroke. Step Two Paint in your sky, using Ultramarine Blue, watered down to a wash. Paint in your darkest area and blend out with Titanium White. Add the slightest touch of Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue to create a moodier and warmer sky. This will complement the tone in scene below the skyline. Step Three Painting in the background mountains. Start with the farthest mountain. The atmosphere in the distance between the foreground and the back mountains causes the intensity of colour…

Materials List • Liquitex acrylics• White• Lemon Yellow• Magenta or Cool Red• Pthlato Blue or Cool Blue• Raw Sienna• Olive Green• Gloss medium varnish• Liquefying medium• Assorted round Taklon brushes• Small chiselled brushes• Flat 1.5cm brush for glazing It is not uncommon for me first to draw with a brush using gloss varnish to make marks on the canvas. This acts like a masking fluid that leaves the canvas exposed with white pattern when you drag the colour over the top. Step One I first start with a wash of pale colour washes using any medium (gloss) and water. I simply want to stain the surface and suggest marks that may appear to be flower like. I will then use a dark watercolour pencil to go into the negative space and find some shapes. STEP Two Here I use mostly primary colours…

Born in Nepean Hospital in 1965, I grew up in Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains of NSW. Our house backed onto the National Park, so my playground was the bush. Up to now, I’ve done quite a few Australian landscapes with eucalyptus trees, and I feel this fascination stemmed from my childhood. Very early on I was drawn to the arts. I could pick out tunes and play them on the piano before I was taught. Projects throughout school focussed more on the visual than the written. I remember getting in trouble in history once because I drew the heads of Roman statues instead of writing about them. It seemed more important to me to understand the tonal grading of the face than to discover which town they had ransacked.…

Over the past 34 years I’ve travelled the world, amassing a substantial collection of images of people and places on all seven continents. The images are published worldwide in books, magazines, newspapers, brochures, calendars, posters, cards and websites. If you’ve ever bought a Lonely Planet travel guide, you’ve probably seen some of my pictures, as they have appeared in more than 500 titles and editions. From the moment I received my first camera at 16, I wanted to be a photographer. The camera was a birthday present and it came with a roll of colour negative film. The day the 12 colour prints came back from the lab I was hooked. Within three months I had a darkroom set up in my bedroom, and I was reading every photography magazine…

The collection is stored in a purpose-built facility with designated rooms for works on paper, textiles, black and white photographic negatives, ceramics, and paintings. Recently the Gallery presented a survey exhibition focusing on the past 40 years of collection practice. The Gallery was founded in 1966 as a private gallery, known as The Little Gallery, by Jean Thomas. In 1978, the Devonport City Council took over total responsibility for its operation, and in 1984 the Gallery moved to its current premises, a converted Baptist Church c1904, in Stewart Street. The building was designed by S Priest Snr and S Priest Jnr. It is a gothic style building constructed of locally fired, handmade bricks. The vaulted ceiling consists of stained native Oregon pine and carved Blackwood beams. The building remained operational…

Today’s digital SLRs and point-and-shoot models of cameras are set up to work as soon as they are unpacked from their box, and with the numerous auto settings to pick from you can start shooting straight away. All the hard work has been done with the AF auto-exposure modes pre-set, and that allows me to concentrate on my photographic subject. The DSLR cameras make experimenting easy and affordable, as with art we are surrounded with unlimited subjects within the home and the backyard and beyond. The same as with art materials, there is no end of choices of cameras and equipment one can accumulate over time, but you can just kick off with a good DSLR camera with a standard, zoom or macro lens and surprise yourself with the basics.…