A week is a long time in arts....

A week is a long time in arts....
Imagine my surprise when I attended the Watershed Art Prize opening at the John Harvey Gallery in the Salisbury City Council buildings tonight (Friday 27 April) and heard my name announced as the winner of the 1st prize.
My little acrylic "The Night Watch" references the environment and water conservation in the Barker Inlet. 
My sincere thanks to City of Salisbury and the organisers as well as ICE WaRM the major sponsor.

"The Night Watch" acrylic on stretched canvas.

My submission supporting statement:-

The Night Watch – uses humour to highlight the issue of environmental protection. Under the protective umbrella of the Salisbury Council’s Watershed project the Barker Inlet pelicans are able to squabble nightly over the best nesting spots. Their future is being carefully watched over and sensitively managed.

Watercolours .... nothing else is quite as versatile and exciting....

Here is a small sample of my recent works. 

On Thursday morning a fellow artist presented me with a feather so... well you can see the result. ( In retrospect I guess I should have painted a bird with it.) All these works are less than A4 in size, some in my sketch book, some on the backs of failed pieces and some on brown packing paper.
My Burnside class still has a few vacancies, but you'll need to hurry. The beginners/introduction workshop at Adelaide Art Society is almost booked out and the two day workshop for the Northern York Peninsula Art Group is filling rapidly.                Busy, busy, busy and loving it.

All watercolours and all approximately A4 size. 

Belated thanks to ANEAS ....

I've started my series of US watercolour animals on brown paper. 

Today's contributions are a bison (buffalo), bald eagle, coyote and a bobcat. All, as usual, about 20cm x 25cm. 

 The other two watercolours are of British comedian Richard Ayoade aka Gadget Man, and Richard Schiff, American actor currently on our tv screens in "The Good Doctor". Also on 10" x 8" brown paper

The pastel is entitled "Emperor" and is my one and only attempt at pastel painting - and what do you know - it won a prize at the current ANEAS exhibition. I'm chuffed

Kapunda here I come...

After almost a week spent in the inspirational company and under the expert tutelage of master watercolourist Paul Jackson its back to my mini easel for me.

While I am looking forward to conducting a Watercolour Portrait Workshop this Saturday at Kapunda my fellow SAWS members will be busy at Athelstone with the first of the Christmas Card Workshops for this year. Everyone is welcome to attend and create their own heirloom Christmas Card. ( See theSAWS website for details)
and.... here is a Galah and a Young Chimp both painted this morning at ANEAS - Arts North Elizabeth Art Society.

and nice to report that my Union Soldier from a previous post on Facebook is on its way to a new home in Texas.

All these paintings are watercolours on brown paper approx A4 size.

A wrap up of a wonderful week or so....

started on Friday with a three day workshop with the internationally acclaimed watercolourist Keiko Tanabe. A great intro to landscape watercolour and a program that both challenged and inspired us. Thanks to SAWS and Adelaide Art Society and of course Keiko. ( I couldn't resist doing a quick sketch as she was demonstrating the final landscape.)

Monday it was session three of six with the Burnside Painters where I'm currently taking members through the joys of painting animals in watercolour with the occasional diversion into the use of mobile technology to help in creating art.

Tuesday it was delivery time for the portrait I completed as part of the RSASA Portrait Prize demonstrations. I hope my oil painting will be well received at the opening on Sunday.



 (I also entered an animal sculpture for consideration in the Solar Art Prize at the RSASA organised by Pip Fletcher)...

 then it was off to Pepper St Art Centre to submit my entries for the SAWS Members' Exhibition "A Wash of Colour" opening this Friday at 6.30pm and continuing until end of September.
I'll be doing a live demonstration there this Saturday from 2pm to 4pm. Please come along if you have the time. If you are interested in doing a short 6 week course with me at Pepper St starting on 17th September you'd better hurry - only a couple of places are left. (see Pepper St website for details).

Recent Watercolours

I will try to update this blog with watercolours on Monday posts.

This is a selection of my recent work and as they are mainly all small (less than 14cm x 22cm) I'll only give more details on the larger one.

Baby - on brown packing paper

Horse (in sketch book)

Kitten

Ostrich (in sketch book)

Splish, splash

Galah ( 20cm 29cm)

I intend to update oil painting posts on a fortnightly basis.

Year of the rooster - but which rooster?

Squaring off - watercolour on Arches medium 12cmx16cm

We know 2017 is the year of the rooster but these two are deciding just which rooster it is going to refer to.

Just a quick sketch from earlier in the week -
posted here to try and work out a means of auto updating facebook from my blog.

Welcome to 2017

 I know I haven't posted much lately - but now it's time to get back into the swing of things.
The works below are some of my watercolours done since the start of the New Year. They are my way of easing into the year ahead.

I've actually updated my activities calendar on the right hand side - if anyone is interested in any of the workshops or classes just click on the email links and take it from there.
(Based on last year's responses these fill very quickly so I suggest you act quickly.)

Going Ape - watercolour on Fabriano rough 300gsm 19cm x 13cm

Beany - watercolour on sketch book smooth 200gsm 19cm x 19cm

Cassowary - watercolour on Fabriano rough 300gsm 17cm x 25cm

Hippo - watercolour on Fabriano rough 300gsm 22cm x 19cm

Johnny Vegas - watercolour on Fabriano rough 300gsm 19cm x 13cm

Pleading Eyes - watercolour on Fabriano rough 300gsm 19cm x 13cm

Galah

Galah - oil on board - 20cm x 20cm
$100 Aus + pph
The Australian galah is often found as a pet in Australian homes. It can be taught to speak and there are many stories about the confusion they can create when visitors come and inappropriate language is heard coming from the laundry. In the wild these birds can reach almost plague numbers and they wreak havoc on fruit and nut farmers. Their erratic flight behaviour has led to the derrogatory term "You're a galah!" being used by older Aussies.