Bio Profile

About Me and My Art

The idea of painting was one of those things that I hadn’t previously considered, however after watching some art related videos my head said ‘I can do that’. So… I thought why not give it a go.

Why not indeed, I had nothing to lose and had always been involved in some form of creativity. Everything from embroidery to quilting, to smocking. I know, right, nothing to do with painting, however my whole family has always been very creative.

 So decision made, I was excited to make a start, and see what I could do and where it would take me. To begin with I watched some basic tutorials on Watercolour and quickly fell in love with it. (That was back in 2000.)

Painting looks easy enough when you are watching video, but let me tell you in the beginning it wasn’t/isn’t. It involves a lot of practice, just like most things. Hard work, making lots of mistakes, learning about colour mixing, techniques and all sorts of things. And in the end, it is so rewarding when you create a piece of art that is not only beautiful, but you are also happy with.

Then Perspective came along, boy that thing is everywhere! Not just buildings and landscapes, but in flowers and animals too. Who would have thought! And it is so, so important. If perspective is off, your whole piece is off, that’s it, ruined. The balance is all wrong, something just doesn’t look right, and here again, another not so little thing jumps up to annoy you, this one is size and proportion and they matter also. It doesn’t matter when you notice these things, the main thing is that you do and set about correcting them.

Three years after I began painting, some of the above things had me stumped, so at this point I decided to get some tutoring and see what else I needed to know. I found Mr John Ford, (noted Marine Artist F.A.S.M.A,) in Adelaide and studied under his tutelage for several years. His encouragement, and advice, has given me the confidence and extra knowledge that I needed, to be consistent in producing quality paintings.

I am very passionate about my art and put all my effort into getting it just right, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do creating it.    

Moving forward, in 2016 I decided to expand my knowledge further and started painting with Acrylics to complement and round out my art portfolio.

Watercolour and Acrylics are worked completely different to each other to there was another challenge in my art journey. I find it all fascinating, exciting, frustrating, an adventure that I love.

My style for the most part is realistic and I now concentrate my efforts on painting our Australian Native birds and animals. Here and there you will also find flowers, the odd landscape and my latest adventure in 2021, experimenting with Abstracts in acrylics.

I have shown my work regularly in exhibitions locally. Some of these are ‘The Gawler Community Gallery’, ‘Black Diamond Gallery’ Port Adelaide, Clare Valley, and a few others. I have been graced with winning the popular ‘People’s Choice’ award on occasion, resulting in some lovely prizes, but in general it is not in my nature to go chasing after awards.

I have now been painting for over 20 years (since the year 2000) and still enjoy it as much if not more than the day I started. 

There have been many wonderful commissions along the way, with my work now residing in South Australia where I live, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, The Northern Territory, the U.K, America and Armenia.

Update: Unfortunately, the advent of Covid 19 slowed down the delivery of the Armenian commission as my client was going to deliver in person to several relatives as little gifts. I wish them well and hope they can travel again soon.