When I first picked up a pencil as a child, I would never have guessed the wonderful journey this humble tool would take me on, from travelling to wild and exotic places, to meeting wonderful people, to art becoming an all -consuming passion in my life.
My formative years from birth, through my childhood, were spent in East Africa, mainly in Kenya and Tanzania, of which much time was spent out in the African bush. My father’s job involved being out in the wilderness and he imparted much of his knowledge on to me. He instilled in me to obey the law of the bush and honour the power of nature. I therefore developed a great love for the natural world and the animals that inhabited the wilderness that surrounded me. The interwoven lives of predator and prey, the tranquil and the savage, the demure and the magnificent, all were a source of fascination.
With a love of drawing as well, I was keen to translate these animals to paper. Fortunately my parents took an avid interest in my drawing and were both encouraging and constructive in their guidance with my developing artwork. Living in this part of the world meant that our homes and libraries were full of African art and books, with wildlife being the main subject matter. We had prints of well-known German painter Wilhelm Kuhnert in our home and his work was a great inspiration and motivator to me, as was English painter David Shepherd. As a youngster, I would sit and stare at Kuhnert’s painting called African Lions and dream that I could one day paint that well.
We left Africa and made the move to Australia when I was aged ten. A new culture and a new life began but I missed Africa and the magnificent animals that I grew up with. The move has however, given me more amazing and unique wildlife to incorporate into my artwork and I love every bit of my Australian lifestyle.
With my artistic journey beginning at a young age when I discovered the delightful world of drawing, my art remained a quiet interest for the early part of my life whilst working and raising a family, until the last few years when, with more time permitting, it has become my major focus.
Even though drawing is my first love in art, I had a lifelong desire to experiment with oil paint. This did not eventuate until around 2001. However, I found I could not teach myself about the complexity of colour and the handling of large brushes and paint. My knowledge grew after taking a few workshops here in Australia and two wildlife-focused ones in the U.S. and the experience I gained set a path for me to follow. It is satisfying to be able to mix up my art with different media and approaches. The pencil work is on a smaller scale, more time consuming and detailed, whereas painting is much looser in style, allowing me to work in a larger format, giving a nice balance within my art.
With graphite being my preferred medium, there were times when I felt an urge to add some colour to my drawing and there were certain subjects that I knew would benefit greatly by being drawn using the wonderful colours of the spectrum. Fortunately my artistic journey had led to my being accepted into the prestigious art exhibition “Western Visions” held annually at the National Wildlife Museum in Jackson, Wyoming. Here I met well-known artist Lindsay Scott. Kindly, Lindsay encouraged me to use coloured pencils and so a new journey began with this medium. My early venture in using them was quite a challenge but having already taught myself to draw with graphite, I progressed with trial and error and love the colour and variety that they bring to my subjects. After gaining confidence and a level of competency I have had a few colour pencil drawings published in the books Color Pencil Treasures 4 and 5, written a step by step article for Ann Kullberg’s Color Pencil magazine and had a feature article in the same publication.
For me, my art has always been about the subject, and my style has been to minimize the background and only suggest a hint of habitat for the animal, if any at all. My goal has always been to achieve a likeness of the animal I am portraying, as I feel Mother Nature is a brilliant designer and I need to pay homage to this in my drawing, recreating realism but with an artistic approach.
My art inspires me to continue to travel and experience wildlife in their natural surroundings, collecting my own reference material. This helps me translate my memories of sights, smells, sounds and feelings into the artwork. However, over my lifetime I have seen many changes occur with the wildlife populations, especially in Africa. Once abundant, some animals like rhinos and lions, are becoming scarce and in the case of rhinos with the high probability of becoming extinct in our lifetime due to poaching and human conflict.
Wildlife conservation is close to my heart and it gives me great pleasure to use my art to raise awareness of these crises to the public. Elephants, rhinos and lions are just a few of the animals in dire need of financial support and to be able to donate my art and proceeds of my art to needy conservation organizations is highly rewarding. In April 2018 I was part of an International Wildlife Exhibition in Namibia where funds raised from the art sales were donated to Save the Rhino Trust Namibia as well as a local orphanage. Being a signature member of Artists for Conservation is very fulfilling and I enjoy being in a group of like-minded artists with a common agenda. This year I was a part of an important collaboration called Silent Skies, a huge mural made up of donated artwork aimed at raising awareness to the hundreds of bird species that are endangered.
Happily, I now live in a very pretty part of north eastern Victoria on a small rural property surrounded by wildlife, beauty and serenity as well. My lovely, light-filled studio is attached to my home and is large enough to accommodate small classes of keen students that attend my workshops that run on a monthly basis. A goal for 2019 is to donate some proceeds from each workshop to a different conservation organization of my choice each month.
I feel so blessed to be living the life I now lead, enjoying my art, and travelling to be out in the wild. As an artist, I will continue to educate myself so that my art progressively evolves and improves and I will carry on supporting the wildlife that has given me so much pleasure and inspired my entire life.
