Abbotsford Convent

The grounds of Abbotsford Convent are rich with beauty and a slightly sinister sense of mystery. The old buildings surrounded by intersecting paths and greens where people sit alone or in little groups as others float in and out of the scene, disappearing around a corner or behind a line of trees. This piece was painted directly without pre-drawing, giving it a cloud like quality peculiar to watercolour.

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Dylan Shearsby (born Johannesburg, South Africa, 1979) is a painter and storyboard artist working in film and television. He studied Japanese Sumi-e with the late master Andre Sollier and watercolour with Andrew Gemmill.

As a storyboard artist Dylan has worked on six feature films including the upcoming War Machine (Netflix), Insidious 6 , Saccharine (Stan), along with many TV series and hundreds of commercials.

He has written and illustrated three children’s books, Upside Down Sid, Upside Down Sid Goes to Work (2018), and Waiters in Elevators (2025), published by Little Hare, a Hardie Grant imprint.

Inspired by Andrew Wyeth, Ann Gale and Antonio Lopez Garcia, Dylan seeks to blend realism with the distortion of dreams. The human figure, the natural environment and movement are central themes in his work.

Dylan occasionally teaches figure drawing and painting workshops.