Innholdsfortegnelse for No 200 i Artist's Palette

My name is Desley Markham. I retired to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland five years ago, and it was then that an artist friend introduced me to water paints, and I was hooked! I had won an art prize at school; then I went nursing, got married, had children and immigrated. With the economic downturn my husband went back to work, leaving me time to explore my passion. I have tried painting anything and everything. I disagree with anyone who says it’s an expensive pastime as I have spent very little. Thanks are however in order to my local library for its books and DVDs and my daughter, who gave me my first subscription to Artist’s Palette magazine for Christmas. Two years ago I felt confident enough to try to…

May 2012 will mark the sixth anniversary of buying my first art canvas, when I deciding to try my hand at painting. Much to my surprise and the surprise of others, on that first canvas appeared a beautiful portrait of my dad, his brother and a green Holden that was looking a bit worse for wear!! I titled that first painting ‘Summer of ‘66’. And so began my love of painting, with my next painting ‘After the Storm’ winning my first award and gracing the cover of Artist’s Palette magazine, Issue 57, in 2007. I have since been fortunate enough to receive many awards for my paintings over the years and to see one of my paintings, ‘Train Spotting’, off to its new home with an art collector in Switzerland.…

I started to paint after a flirtation with filmmaking. One of my early 16 millimetre film shorts was chosen to be included in an Australian retrospective which found homes in diverse film libraries including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. However, after several more forays into the short film form, I began to lose interest and gravitated towards painting. I feel painting is a relatively purer form of creative expression and one that is generally free of compromise. My art often conveys a narrative of sorts and sometimes has a cinematic ‘feel’ to it. I feel drawn to illustrative techniques of the 1930s and palettes of the 1930s–1950s. Painters whose subject matter influenced me include Edward Hopper, Rick Amor and Camille Corot. They imbue their work with an…

MATERIALS • Canvas 60.9cm x 91.4cm• Windsor and Newton Oils:Pthalo Blue, Titanium White, Naples Yellow Hue, Oxide of Chromium, Rose, Raw Umber, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Cadmium Orange Hue, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Black, Cad Yellow Pale Hue, Cad Lemon Hue, Cad Yellow Deep Hue, Cad Red Hue, Dioxazine Purple.• Brushes: Taklon angle shader 1/8 and ½ inch, 2/0 fan, various sizes of glaze brushes from a 1” down to 1/8”, and a small round brush. STEP ONE After selecting my subject, in this case, steps leading up to a window with a view of the ocean, I pencilled, sketched and undercoated in warm neutral colours in acrylic. I also put in the things I had already decided I wanted in the painting, and the rest I would add…

I can remember being addicted to drawing and colouring from the age of four. Mum would plead with me to pack up my things for at least an hour before I actually did most evenings. It was like I had to keep going, enjoying the challenge to get things exact. My focus was on nature, especially birds and flowers. It was at primary school in Year One that my teacher recognised my natural flair for art and she suggested to my mum that I go to art lessons with a local artist/teacher, Marea Kozaczynski McCaig, at her Cottage Garden Studio only a 10-minute drive from my home in the lower Hunter Valley of New South Wales. This is where my real art journey began. Classes were on Saturday mornings for…

MATERIALS • 100cm x 70cm sheet of grey colorfix paper• Conte sticks• Pastels - I used Artist Spectrum soft pastels for most of my upper layers, and used a white Schminke’s pastel at the very end for the white highlights.• Sheet of A1 paper for making some transfer paper• Soft eraser• Rubber blending tools• Piece of MDF or plywood bigger than your painting to support your paper• Bull dog clips to hold the paper to your board This painting was inspired by a photograph of a country pub in a little town called Wooroolin, which is situated only a short drive from my home town of Kingaroy, Queensland. I called on some reference photos to set a scene in the 1970s, and the colour palette I have chosen was aimed…

MATERIALS • Whatman watercolour paper – lightweight for ease of penwork. This painting is on a full sheet of watercolour paper.• Pen: Uni-pin 0.8, waterproof pigment ink.• Rowney watercolour paints: Olive Green; Raw Umber; Yellow Ochre; Van Dyke Brown; French Ultramarine Blue; Purple; Rose Carthame; Cobalt Blue.• Paper Towel.• Size 12 brushes (four).• Easy to remove masking tape.• Easel (optional) STEP ONE I taped the watercolour paper to a backing board to make it easier to move about. I tend to alternate between using the table top, balancing the work on my knee, and working on it at my easel. I took time to look at the paper and decide where the lilies were going. I didn’t use a grey lead outline, as I didn’t want to be trying to…

Expat Australian painter Scott Petrie returned to Sydney in November 2011 to showcase 15 of his most fabulous new artworks. Entitled ‘Fresh’, this exhibition was a marked departure from his previous collections and was inspired by living and working in Singapore. “I really want to shake things up in my creative practice. The past year in Asia has opened my eyes to a new wave of ideas – it is all about exploring fresh colours like mixing up hues of green, teal and jade and harnessing a fresh focus,” says Scott. “I love painting in-situ and that is what this exhibition was all about. It is like a breath of fresh air for me to work in a new environment and I am delighted to reveal this to art collectors…

MATERIALS • Arches watercolour paper in medium 300gsm• Lead pencil• Eraser• Ruler• Black 35 Rotring Rapidograph pen• Selected Cotman, Winsor and Newton watercolour paints:Indigo, Sepia, Sap green, Hookers green dark, Burnt umber, Indian red, Cadmium red pale hue, Cadmium orange hue and Gamboge hue• Selected Cotman Winsor and Newton paint brushes: medium and fine tip• Acrylic white paint• Water I was going through some of my colour photographs and found this photo of a charming park bench with climbing nasturtium flowers. I really love the dappled lighting effect and shadows in this image. I want to show people that even a simple park bench can be captured and created into a lovely painting. STEP ONE To begin you need to get a sharp lead pencil and draw in the park…

My roots originated in England in 1945, born into a strict middle class family, where very little of the arts were expressed, or even recognised. The everyday grind was tough for my family. From a young age I expressed a love and appreciation for artistic expression, with a penchant for colour, texture and shading. This led me to spending hours drawing faces and practising my techniques; here was my refuge, which belonged only to me. The feeling of euphoria and the potential of this magic world I had entered has always been my teacher and my own personal mentor, to this day it has always helped me think outside the square, and guided me in surprising ways!! My artistic career in hair and makeup design began in England in the…