Chapter 9
Welcome to 2022! It has been an interesting year, so i’m glad to see everything opening up again. I’m excited to share with you some new things that have been happening and catching up on previous news since it was rather quiet this last year.
Festival of Two Palettes
Duration: 2 days
Date: Sat 12 Mar - Sun 13 Mar
Location: Morpeth Gallery 5 Green Street Morpeth NSW 2321
Time: 10am - 5pm
A word from Morpeth Gallery on their website:
“Begin planning your visit to Morpeth, for the “Festival of Two Palettes”, a weekend of art and gourmet food, Saturday 12th & Sunday 13th March, 2022. In residence over the weekend will be 15 artists. Watch them paint at their easels, talk about their plans for the year and fall in love with your next painting. You will have the opportunity to win an original painting donated by most artists when you make a purchase (original, print or art gift) at Morpeth Gallery during the exhibition. For gourmet food lovers, tantalise your taste buds with tastings of gourmet foods, fudge, cordial, nuts and honey at Morpeth Gourmet Foods on the ground floor of Morpeth Gallery. Exhibition paintings will be available for purchase from Thursday 10th March at 10am. The artists will be in residence for the weekend only. Entry is Free. Morpeth Gallery open 10am – 5pm, Thursday – Sunday.”
One of my new original Artworks ‘Merry King’ will be available for purchase and on display at Morpeth Gallery’s festival of two palettes! I’ll also be demonstrating my Painting with Fire technique at my easel and happy to show you some tricks and answer any questions you may have about my works.
Merry King
“One of the most defining features of our beloved kookaburra is not only their iconic laugh but the blue highlights on their wings. Not as stand out as other kingfishers but subtle enough to still catch your eye. It reminded me of our native Blue-banded Bees so I thought of the two as fitting companions for their harmony of colours. Though I try to stay as true to the flames as I can, adding the watercolour in the artwork just makes it a bit more… ‘Merry’, for our native King. “
Holmes Prize for Realistic Australian Bird Art:
Finalist!
'Black Kite on Patrol' - This piece made the finalist list for this year's Holmes Prize for Realistic Australian Bird Art! It was on display along with 34 other avian artworks from across Australia. I'm still over the moon to be selected and amongst such incredible talented artists.
Massive congratulations to the Award of Excellence winners and a very well deserved Best in Show! An amazing effort by all the staff to get this exhibition up and running during these times and Dr. Gary Holmes for his continued support of the Australian fine arts scene.
The exhibition was held at the beautiful Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve, in Maleny, Queensland from 18 November - 12 December 2021.
You can check out their Facebook page to see all 35 Artworks that were on display, check out the winners and also videos of the announcement on the opening night!
A small side note I had a giggle over what was their post of my piece. As they had done one for each of the finalists but saved mine for lucky last I guess, this is a screenshot of what they had written.
I think it’s lovely that they took the time to research the technique so they could answer peoples questions on the Artwork. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really anywhere for me to explain how it was done in the entry form as most media is common knowledge so would be irrelevant to have a section for that.
I am really grateful for all the positive responses and comments from the people who saw my piece at the exhibition so thank you very very much! Glad you enjoyed my piece and had a wonderful time exploring the exhibition and seeing some of Australia’s best avian artist!
Some new directions…
I’ve been toying with the idea of putting more watercolour into my artworks and now that I’m expanding my Animalia into more colourful wildlife, I think it’s time to incorporate their vibrant and most importantly ‘identifying’ features accurately! So after all the trials and experimenting I’ve done with this medium, I’m pretty happy with the direction that it’s going though some colours lend better to the soot than others.
From what I’ve found, anything with a blue or green hue tends to look muddy and with the soot, since the soot hues belong to the brown family. So when I’m using greens they tend to have more yellow in them or yellows will lean towards orange. The only exception to this is to isolate the colour and put as minimal amount of soot on it as possible! You can see in the Kookaburra ‘Merry King’ all the blues don’t touch anything else yet the greens are more yellow and lifted up from the background rather than a silhouette as I would usually do for backgrounds. The Gang-gang Cockatoo has a lot of crimson red in it but red blends better with the warmer tones of the soot so it works to blend the two together to get a smoother transfer in the colouring.
I hope you found this interesting as I’m happy to share the little tricks I’m constantly finding out about this Painting with Fire technique :)
Gang-gang Cockatoo
“My local Archery course is up amongst the bush as you’re headed to the Alpine. It wasn’t until winter started that I noticed a group of Gang-Gang Cockatoos in the trees above. Their bright red crowns are hard to miss! Watching them fly through the trees and interact with each other was a rather endearing sight for sure. I later collected multiple feathers around the place and studying the patterns for the first time was captivating; the inspiration had found me.
A big thank you to Stephen Jesic for the photo reference! “
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
“Our snow white and yellow noisy boys are hard to miss! Even flying high above, their ear piercing screech sounds a lot closer than it actually is. There are a few small groups of these birds that come by the house and happily investigate the ground for worms… up until I start moving towards them. For such an alert bird, they are mischievous and have a curious side to them. This intelligence seemed to show in my artwork the moment I finished his eye, keeping me company until the last feather was etched.“
Black Kite on Patrol
“As an artist and admirer of Australian wildlife, I have had the opportunity to experience several raptor species up close. I am continually impressed by their abilities and behaviours. Most amazing is to see them soaring through the sky! Their grace and agility in the air is always mesmerising.
I was fortunate enough to see a small group of Black Kites above the main road heading out of Wangaratta and I happened to have my camera in the car! It was a true delight to capture this one banking around as it surveyed the ground.“