I love to experiment with mark making materials, at the moment it’s watercolour granulation with gives an organic unpredictable feel to my work.
As a child I loved to paint and draw in Sydney . A career as an artist was never considered an option for me by my family, so after completing an arts degree and teaching diploma I taught high school history and geography for a number of years in Junee and The A.C.T. In the University holidays I persued my love of painting found casual work hand painting serigraph ( screen prints )of Paddington Terraces in Sydney with Kevin Oxley studios and Cedric Emmanuel studios.
A family move to Brisbane gave me the opportunity to make art a career by studying a 3 years full time graphic design diploma at Queensland college of Art, now Griffith University. After working in the field for a few years I had my family and continued to work part time as an illustrator, designer, custom decorative painter manufacturing my own products, writing instructional publications, and teaching art.
For the last 24 years, I have lived in Noosa Qld, where I taught privately until several years ago. Now I have my studio to myself and have various areas for each medium, oil, watercolour and acrylic and am surrounded by native gardens and the sea where I find my daily inspiration for my eclectic mix of artwork. Having travelled the world extensively, I’m able to draw on my visual memories and extensive collection of photographs to create my artwork. No single genre depicts my genre although sea and landscape as well as florals and abstracts seem to be my main themes.
Painting is a trick of the eye and I’m constantly finding new ways to portray a three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface. The ever changing natural environment provides vistas for my creative explorations using all manner of materials for application of both acrylic, oil paint‚ combined with traditional drawing materials such as charcoal‚ ink‚ pencil, oil pastels and collage. I enjoy the tactile nature of the impasto surface and it has led me to use the painting knife extensively to achieve my goals and are a feature of my oil and acrylic paintings. Often I start my paintings with very thin transparent paint, slowly building up the layers and finishing with very thick textures. The spontaneous nature of watercolour painting and it’s immediacy allow me to express my ideas quickly. I carry my sketch book, watercolours and camera always in order to record those precious moments which often lead to the realisation of a larger work in the home studio. Please view my Insta pages for current updates.
I have won many awards‚ published dozens of magazine instructional articles‚ sold hundreds of paintings world wide, judged the decorative art at the Brisbane Exhibition, worked as a graphic designer, Freelance illustrator, TAFE and High school teacher, and taught many enthusiastic painters as well as raised a family. I’m now able to devout time to my own work and have a wonderful studio space where I can explore all mediums . I rarely enter art competitions. I have many reasons but here is not the place to explain why. In recent years, my paintings have been available almost exclusively on Bluethumb.
My aim is to bring joy to the viewer with my colourful paintings at a reasonable price
I’m available for commissions.
Follow me on my Insta account @chrishobelartnoosa
