How did a girl growing up in Zimbabwe become a professional wildlife artist? Many factors were involved, the most important being family, the environment I grew up in and education. I was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia, and grew up in the semi-rural outer suburbs. I was surrounded by the beauty of Africa, the trees and birds, which gave me my deep and enduring passion for nature. My interest in art must have been sparked by the art in our home, reproductions of works by Vermeer, Cezanne and Turner. Genes also helped, I seem to have been born with the ability to draw, there are a number of professional artists in the family. My family provided a supportive, nurturing environment, my mother being wise enough to make sure that I had plenty of time “to dream” as she said.
At high school I had a wonderful art teacher, from Chicago, so was well versed in art history and under her guidance was able to develop my art skills. I attended the University of Cape Town for two years doing a dual major in art and biology and then the University of Minnesota for a further two years where I continued these studies. As interesting as these years were I left not knowing where to head next. Then followed years of searching for my direction, was it to be biological research or art. All of this changed when I moved to Sedona Arizona and moved in next door to Adele Earnshaw, a wildlife artist from Warkworth, New Zealand, close to where I live now. She inspired and encouraged me to follow both of my life passions, art and biology, and become a wildlife artist.
I started on this venture by doing pencil drawings, my most comfortable medium, for many years. I regard it as an apprenticeship, really getting to explore and understand composition and values (lights and darks). After a number of years I ventured into coloured pencil, getting to know colour in an unthreatening way. I had been fortunate to have met Thalia Lincoln, in South Africa years before, who does the most wonderful coloured pencil botanical drawings and she was generous enough to give me some invaluable pointers.
At this point I started doing art shows across America: Birds in Art, Pacific Rim Wildlife Art Show and the Southeastern Wildlife exposition amongst others. This is where my work came to be known to collectors and galleries. It was invaluable, but very tiring, to stand around for days on end talking to people and getting the reaction to my work. I had by then moved to California and met the love of my life, Brian McPhun, my greatest fan, muse and supporter. We moved to the Caribbean for a year shortly after we met and that time out gave me the chance to explore painting, pencil did not do well in the humid environment there. I had not really learned much about painting at art school so essentially taught myself… this was well before the days of YouTube, so had to rely on art magazines for tips.
These were exciting and heady times, my work was well received and many doors opened. I got to mingle with so many wonderful talented people and found that wildlife artists are incredibly supportive of each other. A wonderful environment in which to flourish.
Art is about passion. For me this is nature, so to get started requires hours, days, months outdoors sketching, studying and photographing. In the studio I use all this information, but yet I try to paint what I feel about something rather than just reproducing things that I have seen. I always start in my sketch book with thumbnail sketches with the layout of the composition, mainly shapes and values. I may do many for an idea, or just one if I hit it the first time. I got into this habit when I only did pencil and coloured pencil drawings. These are both very unforgiving media. The idea has to be fully formed in my head and in the sketches before I start any drawing.
Once you start it is very hard to change anything so I like to be very sure of where I am headed. With these media the first thing to work out is where the white areas are. These areas are simply the paper and must not be touched, no eraser marks , smudges or finger prints, otherwise you just end up with an ugly mess. It is always possible to darken areas, but very difficult to lighten them. I was warned by art dealers that I would never get anywhere working in black and white, and African subject matter to boot… I was happy to prove them wrong, winning a number of best of shows with pencil work.
white areas are. These areas are simply the paper and must not be touched, no eraser marks , smudges or finger prints, otherwise you just end up with an ugly mess. It is always possible to darken areas, but very difficult to lighten them. I was warned by art dealers that I would never get anywhere working in black and white, and African subject matter to boot… I was happy to prove them wrong, winning a number of best of shows with pencil work.
As with pencil drawings my oil painting ideas start as thumb nail sketches. Once I have one I am happy with I can then decide on the size of the canvas needed, Brian stretches the canvas for me – aren’t I fortunate. I then sketch out the idea on to the canvas and do a very rapid underpainting, blocking in colours and values. This I may set aside for days, or even months. I will look at it occasionally, make sure I am happy with the composition, make sure the anatomy and proportions are correct and generally consider whether it will be worth putting the time into that particular idea.
I normally use quite a limited palette which ensures that my work has a unity of colour, so that just about every colour has bit of the other colours in it. For certain paintings I will sometimes add other colours, depending on the subject matter. My normal palette is French Ultramarine blue, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt blue, Cadmium yellow, Cadmium Lemon, Naples Yellow, Transparent Yellow Ochre, Rose Madder, Burnt Sienna and white. Cadmium red is occasionally added, as is Oxide of Chromium.
When the stars are aligned I start the final painting. I generally paint from the back ground to the foreground so that things in the front overlap things in the back. Having the underpainting really helps me assess the value and colour and how they relate to each other and to keep the entire painting consistent. I normally keep going on a single piece once the final painting is started, I don’t switch from one to another. Once the piece is dry it is varnished, before being fitted into the frame, which Brian has normally been working on while I am painting. I am so fortunate to have such a talented husband, an artist in his own right, who has an incredible eye for what will work with a particular piece. He studied water guiding in Santa Fe New Mexico. He then crates and air freights the work to the venue in America.
For over 35 years now I have been so fortunate to have had wonderful success in wildlife art. With the changing world of Covid I have had a lot of time to reflect and wonder “where to from here”. I constantly try and improve my skills as an artist. Not being able to travel has given me more time to do this.
It is definitely a case of the more you learn the less you realize you know. I have recently being doing colour charts to refresh my appreciation of mixing colours in oil paint.. This is one of the first exercises that students do at art school. When I did them all those years ago I was too early in my journey to fully realize how valuable they are and am learning so much from them now. With colour charts you mix every colour on your palate with a bit of every other colour and then mix that with increasing amounts of white.
After years of pounding the pavement at art shows I now mainly show my work through a few select galleries across America and attend openings when we can. Art has taken us on an incredible journey, going to places we never dreamed of and meeting wonderful and extraordinary people.
It is going to be interesting to see where this journey takes Brian and me from here.
