Australian How To Paint Issue 47

I remember always being passionate about drawing, from childhood right through to now. I always knew, deep down, that being a pencil artist was my career path. Even as a youngster, I was never prolific ever, but would spend many hours absorbed totally, drawing a carefully considered work with lots of detail and accuracy. Pencils have always been my chosen medium, even though I learnt all other mediums. I thoroughly enjoy the feeling of using pencil and the effects created by pencil and can happily spend many hours with a pencil in hand. At university, I studied all forms of 2D and 3D art, but majored in printmaking, etching and lithography – both being a form of drawing. Graduating with a Diploma of Visual Arts and a Graduate Diploma of…

MATERIALS • Fabriano Artistico Hot Press 300gsm paper• Faber Castell Series 9000 greyleads in F, HB and 2B• Faber Castell Polychromos colour pencils in Dark Sepia, Prussian Blue, Sky Blue.• Violet, Rose carmine) and Brown Ochre• Light Violet, Grey Green, Light Blue and Terracotta.• Derwent Artists colour pencils in Sky Blue and Blue Grey• Knitting needle STEP ONE Fairy wrens are very social birds and spend a lot of time on the ground, so the theme of this image is the welcoming of one bird to a new group against the complex backdrop of the floor debris. All my works are carefully designed, including all the background details, negative spaces and the amount of colour to greylead. The latter is kept in my mind rather than put into the initial…

Brenda Holden spent her formative years in the foothills of Adelaide. Hiking around waterfalls in the area, she grew to love the abundant birdlife. While young, she spent many years in Broken Hill and outback Western Australia – all the while developing an appreciation for native wildlife. Her extensive travels in the country and the Australian Outback have lent authenticity to the wildlife habitats depicted in her paintings. Brenda worked mainly on commissions early in her career, then started to exhibit her work in the late ’90s. After joining the Wildlife Art Society of South Australia in 1996, she received the prize for ‘Best Watercolour’ at the society’s annual exhibition in 1997. She is an exhibiting member of The Wildlife Artist Society of Australasia and the Queensland Wildlife Artists Society;…

MATERIALS • Genesis Heat Set Oil Colours: Genesis Red; Ultramarine Blue; Genesis Yellow; Sap Green; Phthalo Green; Titanium White; Burnt Umber; Red Oxide; Mars Black.• Brushes: Roymac Golden Sable sizes 000, 1, 2, 4 and 6.• Round Tip Palette Knife.• Background: Four coats of diluted Matisse Gesso, sanded between coats, on Saunders Hot Press Illustration Board.• GMC 1600 watt Heat Gun, to set the oil paint. STEP ONE After deciding on size and format, I drew the foreground objects to size with as much detail as possible before transferring them onto my prepared board. When I airbrush a background (as in this painting), I mask the bird and the branch with masking fluid. STEP TWO I checked the bckground colour against photographs taken, making sure that the foreground would stand…

Glenn Demnar, my art mentor for many years, used the term ‘loose’. Looseness has become a predominant feature of my style. With oils, being ‘loose’ engenders minimal risk … it’s only paint. Socalled mistakes can be corrected through overpainting; scraping; or just leaving and re-assessing later. With drawing, however, ‘looseness’ is a risk. Unless one exclusively uses easily erasable graphite, the possibility of correcting ‘mistakes’ becomes problematic. Attempts to ‘overdraw’ often lead to overworking. The delights of a loosely created drawing are the freshness, vitality and surprise that arise from allowing the hand to work (or play) independently from the mind … the drawing seems to create itself and aspects of the subject, hitherto concealed, appear. Why birds? According to Brett Whiteley, they are simply ‘the most beautiful creatures’. This…

Jenny Hartley is a Queenslander who has been an active painter since 1990 – creating works of art in graphite, watercolours and acrylics. Her childhood, spent on the family farm near Casino in New South Wales, installed within her a deep love of the natural environment – for native flora and fauna, and for the colour and light in the landscape. Her mother’s love for gardening also spawned her desire to create glowing translucent images of flowers in watercolours. When Jenny was a child, no scrap of paper missed her attention. She loved to draw faces and animals. Her high school years presented new opportunities and she achieved ‘Dux’ for three years in art class and planned to continue her studies … but romance, marriage and children become her priorities…