Australian How To Paint magazine chooses a topic or style of art each issue and gives you a comprehensive guide for you to develop your skills. Over the series we will cover all major painting techniques plus popular paint ideas.
Where do I begin? Do I start at primary school where, like so many children before and after me, I drew my favourite cartoon characters? Do I start at aged 12, drawing my guinea pig (I wasn’t allowed to have a horse) who courageously sat through hours of being used as a life model? Do I start in high school where I was taught to draw with the “right side of my brain” and was really impressed when my drawings actually looked like what it was supposed to? Or do I start aged 38 when I decided to live in the moment like the animals that inspire me and become a full-time artist? Let’s start in university… After finishing the HSC doing 3-unit Art, I was “steered” by my parents…
MATERIALS Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils: In an A3 size drawing I'll need about 6-7 Black (199) & 1 White (101) Smooth Archers Watercolour paper or Smooth White Museum grade mount board you get from the framers Bond or tracing paper 2B pencil Pencil sharpener Electric eraser (optional) I had just got off the phone from talking to Artist’s Palette (when they called and asked me to submit an insight and demo), the screaming, jumping up and down, the phone calls to tell friends and family and posts on social media has stopped… I’m now left with the not so easy task of explaining how exactly I go about doing one of my drawings… So in this day and age of new technology I decided to follow the masses of trying to…
Nancy was born in Northern Luzon, Philippines in 1956, moving to Boat Harbour on the north west coast of Tasmania in 1984. Together with husband Mike, she relocated to the east coast fishing village of Bicheno in 1987, where their son Oren was born. With Mike busy establishing a marine charter operation based from Coles Bay, Nancy felt the need to express her creative urges by putting brush to paper as it were. At age 43, quite out of the blue she announced to her family over dinner one night, “I’m going to be an artist and paint flowers!” Unperturbed by early attempts to portray her subject of choice, Nancy joined a local art group “The Haphazards” at Swansea, where she enjoyed not only the artistic company and source of…
MATERIALS 45cm x 45cm stretched canvas on frame Watercolour pencils for sketching, and the following Atelier and Matisse acrylic paints: Titanium White, Prussian Blue, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Cobalt Blue, Yellow Oxide, Payne’s Gray, Alizarin Crimson. A variety of brushes are used, depending on the texture required: soft nylon, bristle, flat, round and rigger. “El cheapo” palette Small trigger-spray water bottle Clear, pressure pack spray varnish to seal and protect the finished painting. A colleague who was familiar with my work, and had seen one of my earlier paintings of “Holly”, a mutual friend’s pet Miniature Schnauzer, asked if I would paint a portrait of her son’s pet cat “Pilot”, which she would like to present as a gift. Normally I like to visit and “meet” the prospective…
Another rainy day, another chance to stay indoors and draw and paint! Any excuse would do for an 8-year-old whose only desire was to be “an artist when I grow up”! Well almost 48 years later I still have the same passion to paint and draw as I believe I was born with! My father was a house painter and good at sketching and colour mixing. I accredit him with my colour mixing ability. I became very excited every time he was going into the shed to mix paint. He had a container filled with bottles of stainers (concentrated colour) and time after time I watched as he painstakingly mixed and matched colours, adding a little bit of blue here and a tiny speck of red there. He could match a…
I’m confident most of us are familiar with coloured pencils having used them at some time in our lives, either at home with “colouring in books” or at school. Some people love “sketching” with the humble HB pencil. Well I’m here to take you on a journey of discovery, to hopefully re-ignite an artistic flame within. There is no need to spend a lot of money on materials, you may already have some HB pencils and coloured pencils tucked away in a drawer somewhere! You may need to purchase a sketch- pad, and an inexpensive watercolour pad to get started, then as you advance experiment with varying grades and types of papers and illustration boards and also collate a variety of sketch or graphite pencils for shading. I’m thrilled to…
