Artists Drawing and Inspiration Issue 39

ROBERT ELLEM  Robert was born in Maclean Northern NSW. Trained as an aircraft engineer and travelled the world with his career. He has a passion for buildings and architecture. JENNY PRIDE  Hi Simon, my name is Jenny Pride, I have always drawn or as long as I remember. I love your magazine, it’s hard to find good art magazines devoted to drawing! I have taken painting courses with Elena Paraschko, a friend of mine, and enjoyed learning to paint oceans, however drawing is my first love. I look forward to increasing my technique with your informative magazine! MELISSA WEST My name is Melissa West and I am a Visual Art teacher for students aged 5-18 in a small central QLD school. I studied a Bachelor of Visual Arts and a…

Another rainy day, another chance to stay indoors and draw and paint! Any excuse would do for an 8-year-old whose only desire was to be “an artist when I grow up”! Well almost 48 years later I still have the same passion to paint and draw as I believe I was born with! My father was a house painter and good at sketching and colour mixing. I accredit him with my colour mixing ability. I became very excited every time he was going into the shed to mix paint. He had a container filled with bottles of stainers (concentrated colour) and time after time I watched as he painstakingly mixed and matched colours, adding a little bit of blue here and a tiny speck of red there. He could match…

STEP ONE Using an H pencil and a good quality sketchpad (110g or over) plus any reference photographs I need, I begin to draw. The preliminary drawing is always exciting as finally all of the elements come together. I usually do a “rough idea” on my sketchpad to ensure I am happy with the composition. I then proceed to trace over my design before starting to sketch on my final 640g H/P watercolour paper. This makes it easier to move things around to get the best perspective, without having to draw then re-draw your sketch. STEP TWO Once the drawing is finished and I’m happy with placement etcetera I begin working on the birds using watercolours. For the colourful Galahs I am using Permanent Rose together with Opera and a…

Rains & Windsor & Newton watercolours: • Permanent Rose • Permanent Opera Red • Red Brown • Sepia • Cobalt Blue • Permanent Violet • Titanium White Rembrandt Polychromous pencils: • Cool Silver Grey • Medium Grey • Cool Light Grey • Rose Madder Lake • Pink Madder Lake • Light Flesh • Paris Blue • Dark Cobalt • Violet • Gold Ochre • Hookers Grey Green Green • Dark Sepia • Light Chrome • Titanium White 640g H/P watercolour paper • H pencil • 90g tracing paper • 110g sketch pad…

• Draw up a plan of your intended composition on a good quality sketchpad. • Trace over your main objects i.e. birds, flowers using a 90g (or similar grade) tracing paper. This will allow you to change the position of objects easily moving them about on your final sheet or canvas to obtain the best placement without having to sketch up and rub out if you want to shift things around in your composition. • Avoid rubbing out as much as possible on your final sheet if using paper as this will help the paper to remain smooth and allow the pencil to glide on more easily and evenly. • I prefer to use 640g Hot Pressed smooth watercolour paper as it can handle numerous watercolour washes and the surface…

Born in England, I migrated to Australia in 1968 at the age of ten. I work full-time as a clerk with the State Government and I live at Lake Macquarie in New South Wales. I completed an informal art course at Dobell House, Wangi, when my youngest child was 18 months old … because I needed some ‘me’ time. My daughter is now nearly 18 years old. I have an affinity with the ocean and I love painting the movement of waves; and trying to achieve the translucency of water. I have an older brother who has been an artist most of his life. As a child, I always compared my artwork with his. As a result, I didn’t consider myself very good at drawing or art – and left…