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I love working with watercolour… each piece is unique and has it’s own character. The colours can be vivid and rich or soft and muted, and way the colours interact is different every time.
My preferred medium, particularly when used with unipin fineliner.
unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour postcards x 3 – can be framed separately or together.
Journal piece… unipin and metallic watercolour
Journal piece … unipin and watercolour
Journal piece … unipin and watercolour
Unipin and watercolour on 4 x A3 300gsm watercolour sheets (950mm x 700mm wooden frame with acid free mount) SOLD
A commissioned work in the lobby of Wills Tower apartment block in the Melbourne CBD. Contact me for more information.
Journal piece – Unipin and watercolour
journal piece – Unipin and watercolour
watercolour fun
Watercolour with unipin drawing on autumn paper overlay
Watercolour
A4 watercolour
watercolour
A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour postcard
A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour postcard
A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour postcard
A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour postcard
A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour postcard
The Create course at NCAT does a term on printmaking and we have been lucky enough to try monoprinting, gelatin printing, block printing and etching. I particularly enjoy relief printing, so lino and etching were my favourites. Where would you be in life if you didn’t have any etchings to invite people back to see?
Personally, I can’t seem to get past flowers… so beautiful and each one is so different. I’m hoping to get back to this fascinating artform soon.
AP chine colle etching on Hahnmuller watercolour paper
35mm x 22.5mm paper size
AP chine colle etching, blue ink on Fabriano Rosapina Bianca 285gsm watercolour 22.5cm x 32cm paper size
AP chine colle etching on Fabriano Rosapina Avorio 285gsm watercolour 22.5cm x 32cm paper size
AP chine colle etching on Fabriano Rosapina Bianca 285gsm watercolour 22.5cm x 32cm paper size
AP etching on Japon Proofing 225gsm watercolour 22.5cm x 32cm paper size
AP chine colle etching on Fabriano Rosapina Avorio 285gsm watercolour 22.5cm x 32cm paper size
AP etching on Cartridge 200gsm 22.5cm x 32cm paper size
monoprint on litho paper
ghost monoprint on cartridge
monoprint on cartridge
monoprint on litho paper, hand coloured
monoprint on litho paper
monoprint on litho paper, hand coloured
gelatin print on card
Lino block prints on watercolour paper
Lino block prints on cartridge
As much of my illustrations use watercolour I feel a crossover between drawing and painting, but I love colour and watercolour is just so fun to use!
I haven’t included much of my digital illustration here, but I do use Illustrator to draw in much of my design work… I have loved getting back into manual techniques this year, though!
sign pen on cartridge, digitally altered
unipin and watercolour on cartridge
unipin and watercolour on cartridge
white pencil on black card
journal piece, unipin and watercolour
journal piece, unipin and prismacolour pencil
journal piece, unipin and prismacolour pencil
Unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour paper
Exhibited at the Makers’ Collective inaugural ‘Postcards’ show
Unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour paper
Exhibited at the Makers’ Collective inaugural ‘Postcards’ show
Unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour paper
Exhibited at the Makers’ Collective inaugural ‘Postcards’ show
Unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour paper
Exhibited at the Makers’ Collective inaugural ‘Postcards’ show
Unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour paper
Exhibited at the Makers’ Collective inaugural ‘Postcards’ show
Unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour paper
Postcard idea when you are on a staycation!
Unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour paper
Staycation postcard idea!
Unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour paper
Staycation postcard idea!
Unipin and watercolour on A5 Fabriano 210gsm watercolour paper
Unipin and watercolour on A6 Fabriano 300gsm watercolour paper
journal piece, unipin and watercolour
Unipin and watercolour on A5 Fabriano 210gsm watercolour paper
Unipin and watercolour on A5 Fabriano 210gsm watercolour paper
white pencil on black card, ink on cartridge
Ink applied using a toy tree on cartridge!
A bit of digital illustration for something a bit different …
unipin and watercolour on A5 300gsm Fabbriano watercolour paper $35
When watercolour doesn’t seem like the right medium you move on to acrylic or oil paint. Different but still fun!
There does still seem to be a lot of flora work going on…
Painted for the 2018 Exquisite Palette show
31cm x 31cm acrylic on canvas
12.5cm x 12.5cm
Water-based oil on canvas
water-based oil ‘sketches’
27cm x 22cm
Acrylic on canvas board (painted in the style of Morandi)
29.7cm x 21cm
Acrylic on canvas paper
Painted for the Palliative Care Australia art competition in response to the prompt ‘What do you need most over the festive season?’
acrylic on canvas, 30cm x 92cm
acrylic on A4 canvas board x 3
acrylic on A6 clayboard $60
watercolour and unipin on QOR ground over 8’x10’ wood canvas $220
watercolour and unipin on QOR ground over 8’x10’ wood canvas $220
I am not a photographer, but I thought I’d put a few of my favourite shots on the site… I have sometimes used my own images in client projects as a designer, but in general I take photos for personal enjoyment. Most of these images were shot in response to a brief… does that make it easier or harder?
metallic paint texture
view from my office through the blind on a sunny day
can you guess what this one is?
Rule of thirds, leading lines, all the rules
the view from my parent’s apartment
my oldest child
the best light is often in the morning
spooky
my daughter and I having fun with sculpey
more sculpey fun
Sculpey tragedy
response to a still life brief
response to a still life brief
response to a still life brief
again with the flowers?
taken while riding my bike to the gym… try doing that with a DSLR!
early morning dog walking for art’s sake
mucking around in photoshop!
Work that doesn’t fit anywhere else!
A HISTORY OF FLIGHT
Inspired by Sarah Sentilles’ book Draw Your Weapons, I have been looking at the relationship between art and violence. Art depicting violence can be ugly... bloody, visceral, a visual representation using the violence itself as the subject. Thinking about ways to reference violence through beauty, the word poignant came to mind. Often in news photos documenting violence, it is the out of place everyday object that has the most impact. You look past the obvious signs of a violent aftermath to the child’s shoe discarded among the wreckage; this simple inanimate object is the visual shorthand that moves you; it makes the violence seem more relatable and therefore more real.
Unthinkable numbers of people have fled their homes to escape wars being fought around them. For each war I decided to imagine an everyday or precious object that might have been grabbed up in flight, either for practical purposes, or because it holds sentimental or economic value. I began to catalogue a history of human flight – only 8% of documented human history has been free of war (and I don’t think this definition of war includes ‘leaders’ attacking their own citizens). Each war is labeled with an item that might be found lying on the road to safety; the resilience of human hope among the aftermath of violence.
A coffin, the universal ‘icon’ for death, contains this catalogue of wars. It is an instantly sobering object, the coffin. Often beautifully crafted, but always chilling. You approach it knowing you are going to find death within. The circle of life is also the circle of death, in an infinite loop.
During this cataloguing, on May 26, 2018, yet another asylum seeker under Australia’s ‘protection’ committed suicide after years in one of our ‘offshore facilities’. As a Rohingyan man fleeing what the UN has called one of the most violent regimes in the world, Salim Kyawning was found by Australia to be a refugee, but spent 5 years detained on Manus enduring a steady decline in physical and mental health. Labelled by his friends as the ‘Man of Flowers’, Salim has become the human representation of my history of flight. A photo of him holding flowers for the guards who were coming to forcibly remove him and his fellow detainees from the Manus campsite flooded my social media, and I have used that image to make a memorial tile, hung with all the labels our country has given him in the years his welfare has been our responsibility. So many tags, none of them describing who Salim actually was, yet they are all we are left with. He has also become detritus on the road away from violence, failing to find the peaceful life he ran towards for so long.
Vale.
Postscript: On 14 June 2018 a 26 year old Iranian man also took his own life on Nauru... when will our complicity in this tale of horrors end?
I also include a later project from 2018, Boundless Plains to Share… this is a memorial to 12 of the asylum seekers who have died on Manus and Nauru… hopefully one day there will be an apology to them and their families for the appalling way we have treated them and the terrible ways we have let them down.
the copper tags are all the labels ascribed to Salim as an asylum seeker in the Australian system
unipin and watercolour drawings
paper clay and glaze (and stick on gems!)
artists’ book, coffin and unipin and watercolour tags
unipin and watercolour on fabbriano 300gsm postcards, mounted on foamcore board painted with acrylic
This piece is a memorial for 12 of the asylum seekers who have died on Manus and Nauru since 2014. Their blood is on our hands.
Collage… as a designer I make digital collages all the time, but there is nothing as satisfying as cutting out bits of magazines.
My favourite subject in my visual arts course… something I have never been any good at, but nothing helps you to draw better than a life drawing class! Learning to really observe and make marks with your hand and eye together has been such a great journey to embark on.
I particularly love the blind contour approach where you draw without looking at your page… in every drawing there is at least one line that is better than anything else I have managed while looking at the page. Remarkable.
Life drawings are posted with the most recent last… hopefully some progression is obvious. A good life drawing teacher is solid gold… thanks, TP!
Style pen – 2 minutes each
Style pen – 2 minutes each
Style pen – 2 minutes each
10-15 minutes
15 minutes
10 minutes
10 minutes
5 minutes each, erasing with lambswool and drawing over the top… ghostly!
Between 2 and 10 minutes each
1 minute for tone, black added later
5 minutes each (for tone, black added later)
5 minutes each (for tone, black added later)
10 minutes (for tone, black added later)
2 minutes each (pink, black added later)
15 minutes total – really happy with the foreshortening on this pose!
10 minutes (pink)… black added later
20 minutes – black added later
20 minutes
20 minutes
2 x 2 minutes
5 minutes
20 minutes
20 minutes