the pleasure of meeting, and I was
also fortunate to spend an afternoon
with the late Darcy Doyle in his
home on the Gold Coast amongst
his paintings, where he gave me
lots of encouragement and advice.
A good friend and an artist I have
known and admired and aspired to for
many years (we were members of the
Shepparton Artists Society together in
the late ‘70s and early ‘80s) is Ross
Paterson (whom I think is the Streeton
of our era). I also admire the work of
Herman Peckal and David Chen.
I absolutely love working in all
mediums: oils, acrylic, pastel,
gouache, watercolour, ink mix
media and more, they have to be
quality materials. Often I get asked
what medium I like the best and
I say; “the one I am working on
at the moment”. But I do believe
oil is the king of them all as oilswill glow like no other medium.
I like to paint all subjects. When I
look back at what I paint the most,
it is wildlife; birds in particular. I am
fortunate to live on the banks of
the Broken Creek, Nathalia, in the
Goulburn Valley of Victoria, with an
endless supply of subject matter.
I paint plein air as often as possible
and take hundreds of photos, wearing
out cameras. I love painting water,
people, and painting the atmosphere,
and I love experimentation mix
media, using new methods with
new materials. I love impressionism
painted with a palette knife and lots of
buttery paint, plus abstraction with lots
of colour. In the early stages of my
art journey I painted realistically and
tight, however now I am much freer
and only use photos for inspiration
and design, not to follow explicitly.
The journey of an artwork isn’t in theProfile