Creative Artist - AU (2020-02)

A lifetime

love of birds

and animals

is evident in

the incredibly

detailed

watercolour

and gouache

paintings

created by

this artist.

Paintings

This page

Above left: Long Tailed

Finch

Above right: Olive

Backed Sun Bird

Opposite page

Blue Wrens

PROFILE

20 artist

I

began my journey to painting in 1987 at a

Council of Adult Education watercolour course. At

that stage I had no idea what I wanted to paint,

but felt that being able to create a painting would

be a great creative outlet. I had this misguided idea

that watercolour would be easy. Wrong! While on

the course, I also learnt about gouache, or opaque

watercolour, as opposed to transparent watercolour.

That was a medium that I had never heard of. I tried

various subjects, mainly landscapes, but eventually

settled on wildlife, as I have always loved birds and

animals and felt I could be more passionate about

these subjects. Wildlife presented a problem in that

you have to seek it out. Unlike a landscape, which

sits and waits for you, wildlife doesn’t do that, in

fact in most cases, it actively tries to get away from

human beings. That meant reference material was

required to help get the realism I required. The

reference material comes from a number of sources,

such as magazines, books, videos and my own

photographs. An easy source of reference in the

local zoo, or wildlife park. That will get you started.

A few words of warning about the use of

reference material. Nearly all wildlife artists use

photographs these days. What looks good, or is

acceptable in a photograph, won’t necessarily

look good as a painting. If you are using multiple

photographic references, where there are different

lighting sources, make sure the lighting is

consistent in the painting. Don’t use other people’s

photographs, unless you have their permission, or

substantially change things. There are professional

The Wildlife

Realist