I am a Cairns based artist working mainly in the medium of oils, but dabble in coloured pencil and digital illustrations.
I feel art is a great way to express things which quite often words can not describe, It bridges a subconscious process influenced by our day to day experiences into tangible material creation.
It's a therapeutic process creating Art, acting as a conduit between the deep non physical soul and the physical world we embody.
I too find that replicating images from a reference is a great way to build technical skills and learn new things.
By constantly trying to improve my technical skills I hope they can transfer across into my more expressive Art.