Black Swans New Home
My painting ‘Black Swans on Lake Burley Griffen’ oil on canvas painting, found a new home and owner yesterday.
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Taking Action Today
I am passionate about preserving endangered species and the protecting the environment. After listening to a life changing interview on the ABC Radio program I took up the challenge to no longer purchase products that use palm oil in them. I also found that it was so easy to take action to help protect the…
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Decisions
Just finished my portrait of Caroline Deeble. My challenge was to create an authentic representation of an artist at a critical time in their journey, making decisions for an upcoming exhibition…
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Tells The Story
How fascinating to meet and paint the portrait of Captain Jim Paterson. I highly recommend, when lockdown is over getting aboard the ‘Cygnet’ tour for a relaxing cruise and to hear the stories of Canberra.
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New Portraits Underway
Preliminary sketch of one of my current portrait subjects.
It is amazing though how much thinking goes into a portrait, for example I started planning for one of my portrait projects early in 2021 and only last week, after the Zoom shoot and about four days of sketching and going through hundreds of images and my research notes I finally decided on a composition, mood, theme and original message behind my painting.
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Chan
In his portrait, I endeavoured to capture his look of sheer concentration and determination and then skillfully, using quick bold strokes how he allows the watercolour to do its thing.
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QPRC Art Scene
Magically last month, when Canberra was not in lockdown as it was from 5pm yesterday. I was in the right place at the right time visiting the historic Rusten House Arts Centre in Queanbeyan.
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Learning to make paint with pure pigments
Covering everything you need to know about preparing surfaces and mixing paints, plus all the all important safety precautions when mixing glues, calcium carbonate (for gesso mix) and pure pigments.
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QPRC Art Prize Exhibition
What a great experience to have my landscape painting ‘WILD GRASSES AND DUCK AT WINGECARRIBEE CREEK’ hung in the Queanbean Palarang Council Art Prize competition.
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The Art of Teaching Portraiture
Have you thought about painting either still life or portraits? I recently made a great discovery in my art journey and haven’t looked back.
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My passion for Portraits at the NPG
Highly recommend the exhibition now showing at the National Portrait Gallery – Australian Love Stories.
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Duck Takes Flight at Wingecarribee Creek
I recently sat down to paint this swelling creek at Bowral, or should I say half way between Bowral and Mossvale. On a sunny, warm summers day, I gazed across the field of wild grasses and this startled wild duck in flight. It reminded me of the beautiful words in Lola Ridge’s poem, so I thought I’d share this with you P.S. My first ever painting of a wild Australian duck!
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Plein Air Painting in Bowral
If you are love to explore and spend time surrounded by beautiful gardens and all things historically Australian, then you might like to keep an eye out on my ‘Historic Houses and Gardens‘ website page. I have carefully listed just a few of the many spots often included…
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Setting Creative Goals for 2021
With the new year well underway I recognise how important it is to set some new and exciting creative challenges and goals going forward. Here are just a few goals keeping me inspired and growing. I would love to hear yours?
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Journeying with Arthur Streeton
Streeton Exhibition – 7 Nov 2020 – 14 Feb 2021 Limited number of timed tickets now available for extra sessions: 8-10am Friday-Sunday, 5-10pm Saturday. If you already have an untimed ticket, it is valid at any time. Last week I travelled back to see the Arthur Streeton Exhibition…
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Time to be jolly and painting! Xmas Wishes 2020
Time to be jolly and painting! Xmas Wishes 2020
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Conversations with Anne Spivey
I recently met with artist Anne Spivey, an emerging talent inspired to capture a variety of different subjects, including some lovely landscapes with pastels.
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Storytelling in Watercolour
Recently, I met with a very humble, talented and powerful story telling watercolour artist called Paul Subhajit.
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Artists and Their Gardens
I like to travel and explore gardens and I have number yet to be visited on my bucket list. As a passionate gardener and oil and watercolour artist, I find lots of inspiration in gardens and nature. Mine is an Australian bush garden that is designed to attract…
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Handy Art Calendar
I created a handy list of well known and celebrated Art Award/Competitions and Prizes, including both Australian and International events and exhibitions as well.
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Conversations with Australian watercolour artist Heidi Willis
I recently learnt a great deal about the special and talented Australian born natural history watercolour artist and tutor, Heidi Willis. ‘The ‘Earthen Artist’
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Conversation with April Rimpo in her studio painting cyclists with watercolour
I was recently had that ‘fly on the wall‘ experience watching a bunch of cyclists come to life in watercolour. I joined celebrated artist April Rimpo in her studio, in Maryland USA via zoom to watch her work. April paints a vast and varying number of subects using…
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Captured Moments with artist Chan Dissanayake
On a brisk and foggy winter’s morning on Lake Burley Griffen in Canberra, our nations capital city. I was perched on the bank with my new trusty Canon M50 to film Master Watercolourist Chan Dissanayake painting ‘en plein air’. We kicked off about 8.30am and yet the fog…
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Conversations with Paula Mitchell Painting ‘En Plein Air’
Excited to say I’ve finished editing version one of my interview with UK artist Paula Mitchell painting ‘en plein air’ near her home in Hampshire. Paula shares her journey and we get to see how she works and the wonderful scene she picked to paint by the sea.…
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Artist Studios & Inspiring Gardens
I’ve been doing a little research on famous artists, their studios and gardens that inspired them. Interestingly I couldn’t find too many famous gardens that artists had created in Australia, not as many as I found in Europe anyway. You may be aware of some of these, in…
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Finding the Golden Zone – Conversations with Artist Paula Mitchell
I’ve been avidly watching on my Fox Arts channel the UK Sky Arts ‘Landscape Artist of the Year 2019’ series and have been enthralled to find a number of outstanding artists that really impressed me with their unique styles and excellent landscape paintings. Paula Mitchell was one of…
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Passion for Chasing Paint – Conversations with April Rimpo
In this interview with watercolourist April Rimpo from Dayton, Maryland USA, you will hear some great tips for how to work with watercolour and fluid acrylic paints, particularly how to capture movement and emotion in your work.
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The Job of the Artist – Conversations with Ben Winspear
‘The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery”, Francis Bacon Chatting to professional oil painter, watercolourist and more recently sculptor, Ben Winspear was intrigueing and fun. I had the good fortune of meeting with Ben and viewing his wide variety of painting subjects from hauntingly…
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Studio Tour with Artist Catherine Sim
Interview with Catherine Sim and Sylvie Carter. Catherine was honoured as a finalist in the prestigeous 2019 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize in the ‘Emerging Artist’ category with her painting of the Monaro – 30 x 40cm on oil panel.
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Bewitched by Watercolour – Conversations with Artist Jeff Williams
Bewitched by Watercolour – Conversations with Artist Jeff Williams
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Introducing fine artist Nicolas Szuhodovszky
Swedish born artist Nicolas Szuhodovszky talks about his studio and oil paintings
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Conversations with James Murch painting ‘en plein air’.
Conversations with James Murch painting ‘en plein air’.
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Transforming the Ordinary into the Extraordinary with Watercolour
Andy Evansen, the internationally recognised master watercolour artist and teacher based in Minnesota, USA talks about his studio and paintings
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Having fun exploring figures with watercolour
Chan Dissanayake, Australian Master Watercolourist demonstrates painting with figures.
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Time To Play
Apart from covering the key fundamentals of using watercolour and watching Chan’s demonstrate, we got time to play!
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Head In The Clouds
ArtWithSylvie and Australian Master watercolourist, Chan Dissanayake shared a 1 hour FREE demonstration of painting clouds.
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Painting another form of meditation
“Art enables us to find ourselves and loose ourselves at the same time.” Thomas Merton. For sometime now, I have used my painting as a form of mediation . In my corporate life I have always recognised how important it is to make time to stop thinking about work…
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Getting Virtual
I am proud to be co-hosting a number of workshops with Australian master watercolourist Chan Dissanayake and hosting a number of virtual AWS community events and online ‘Plein-Air ‘ Paint Alongs.
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Why Get Started?
If you are like me and enjoy problem solving or taking on new challenges that stimulate your thinking, then it is more than likely you are more creative than you potentially think you are. Have you thought about getting in touch with your creative artistic side? Taking up sketching or painting perhaps?
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