Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 51 i Artists Drawing and Inspiration

Titika works primarily with coloured pencils. She is a member of IGOR (International Guild of Realism), of CPSA (Colored Pencil Society of America), of AUSCPA (Australian Society of Colored Pencil Artists), and the UKCPS (United Kingdom Coloured Pencil Society). She says, “Having been born on an island I have always been drawn to the sea and everything about it. Naturally, many of my paintings have evolved around all things marine. “I love water and I draw immense pleasure from painting it. I’m mostly obsessed with the transparency of the shallow waters, the distorted patterns of pebbles and the reflections of light on the water surface. I’m mesmerised by the way the bright sun plays with the waves, causing endless reflections and refractions on the floor of the sea. It’s a…

Gordon Hanley was born in England, and was aged five when he arrived in Australia with his parents in 1960. Life took a number of unexpected turns (a recurring theme in Gordon’s life), that resulted in a two-and-a-half year stay in a migrant hostel followed by constant travel, that saw him attend nine schools before obtaining a university scholarship to UNSW. He studied biology, and obtained a Dip. Ed. Then he promptly joined the military, serving five years with the RAN. Returning to Queensland, he worked as a science/maths teacher while working on his true calling in art. He later obtained a B.A in history at UQ, but in terms of art skills he is entirely self-taught, studying then practicing the techniques of the great masters. “After decades of study,…

Growing up in a tiny village in Cornwall, United Kingdom, and having some amazingly creative and driven people in my close-knit family meant that I got off to a good grounding with my artistic skills. There was always a cake to bake and decorate, or a carnival costume to design and create. It showed me from an early age that there were no limits or rules to being artistic, you just had to give yourself the time and energy to get stuck in. We moved ‘up north’ when I was nine-years-old to a big town where I continued to follow my artistic path through school, on to college for my A Levels and Foundation, and finally on to a degree course in Fashion and Textile Design in Cheltenham. From the…

MATERIALS • A length of wire• A sheet of paper• A special undercoat The zenith of silverpoint drawing was achieved during the Renaissance with masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Albrecht Durer creating some of the most beautiful and recognisable drawings in the history of art. In 1560, the discovery of graphite in England and its subsequent use in the familiar “lead” pencil heralded the rapid decline of silverpoint. Unlike silverpoint, graphite drawings could be done on unprepared paper, mistakes could be erased, and graphite was much less expensive than using precious metals. Although one of the most difficult of all mediums to master, metalpoint drawings have a subtlety of line and a tonal beauty that few other media can rival. Instead of silver, Gordon Hanley works mostly…

MATERIALS • 1 x sheet white Clairefontaine Pastelmat® (to fit 12 x 16” portrait)• Faber Castell Albrecht DurerWatercolour Pencils:– Black– White– Caput Mortuum– Dark Sepia– Payne’s Grey– Burnt Ochre– Dark Indigo– Cool Grey I– Cool Grey II– Prussian Blue– Warm Grey II– Warm Grey III– Terracotta• Craft knife• Pencil sharpener• Water brush (or normal watercolour brush)• Glassine paper (use this to lean on to prevent smudging when working) STEP ONE I took around 200 photos of this dog in a brief photoshoot with a commission client. Sometimes I take several hundred of my subject in the hope that half a dozen will stand out. In this case, there was one head pose that shone out for my client’s portrait, but I wanted to revisit this pose in particular, as it…

I can remember when my sister and my father and I got together in Dad’s shed to make a kite! Some balsa wood for the frame and some of mum’s brown paper that she used to use to line her cake tins, some string and some glue and you were all set to get started! Building the frame was usually Dad’s job then us kids would put the glue onto the frame (most times we squeezed out a little more than we needed), next on went the brown paper! We were always rather impatient when we had to set it aside to let the glue dry, but once dry the string was attached and we were ready for “lift off”! We had mullock heaps beside and behind our house, the…

Margaret Hannah Olley was born on 24 June 1923 in Lismore, northern New South Wales. Eldest daughter of Joseph Olley and Grace (nee Temperley), Margaret’s families both had long ties with the region. The Olleys were a pioneering family in the Lismore district, while the Temperleys lived in Ballina and owned the local newspaper, The Richmond River Times, during the 1880s. Margaret’s earlier years were spent near Kyogle at the family’s Horseshoe Creek property, before moving to Tully in Far North Queensland. It was in Tully that Margaret’s sister and brother were born; Elaine in 1925 and Ken in 1927. By 1931, the Olley family had returned to the Northern Rivers region of NSW, purchasing a sugar cane farm on the banks of the Tweed River near Murwillumbah. Margaret and…

It is a nice thing to be able to paint, which is probably why so many people do. It means, of course, that we have that bit of extra time from the needs of everyday survival, access to necessary materials and that we live in buildings with walls that we can hang our pictures on – and sometimes, if we’re lucky, even on other peoples’ walls. And it means being able, in solitude, to look, and see, to compare, to contrast, and to appreciate this vision. Painting is a particular type of appreciation though, one that goes beyond the everyday. It demands attention to things that we might overlook in our daily lives – like tone and form, composition and colour, subtle nuances of light and even our emotional response…