Hi, I'm Liss, a self-taught artist and printmaker. I work with watercolours, pastels and inks, and I've branched out in the last few months to add acrylic paintings and woodcut prints. You'll find a few collections here:
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Australian birds in watercolour
I came to the art world painting Australian native birds - our favourites like cockatoos, magpies, and emus. My limited edition reproduction prints (and the last few originals!) are listed here on Bluethumb. These are watercolour paintings, often on whole sheets of cotton rag paper, so the prints are quite big (up to A0). They've been popular with interior decorators, and sit happily on the walls of some assisted living facilities in Queensland and Victoria.
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Minimalist portraits painted in light
We’re used to seeing what’s solid, not the light that hits it. My aim with this series is to create just enough light for our minds to picture what it illuminates. There is no way to remove the marks, so these are also an exercise in restraint, and stopping before I think I’m ‘done’. Why men? The female muse is everywhere, from renaissance to pop art. But there is beauty and interest in men’s faces too, and subverting the trope is fun. These pieces are painted on repurposed materials. Check the descriptions to find out what!
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Native flower woodblock prints
Woodblock printing and still life are both classics of the art world, and I'm bringing them together to create a series of Australian-inspired, hand-coloured woodblock prints. Think wattles, banksias, waratahs, and a few exotics that we know and love. These combine European and Japanese printing techniques, watercolour and inks. Each is a unique artwork, as I vary the paper, the printing process, and hand colouring to create one of a kind.
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Cottage garden florals in oils
I also grow a little cottage-style garden, and can't leave out the poppies, irises and daisies that my mum and (late) granny so love. The sinuous lines and rich textures, from paper-thin to velvety or spiney, are so inviting to the eye. I'm slowly adding a series of florals painted in oils, with pops of translucent mica powder just for fun. I prime these with gesso, which adds grit to the surface - zoom in for all of the interesting textures :)
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Influences
Louise De-Masi, who is an amazing watercolour artist, inspired my interest in painting native birds. There are many wildlife and botanical artists who use watercolour in detailed and expressive ways, and I'm always finding new ones on Instagram. For woodblock prints, I am hugely inspired by two 'gallery famous' Australian artists; Cressida Campbel, and Rachel Newling. Cressida carves immensely detailed, enormous woodblocks and prints them with watercolour paint. Rachel carves more stylised and intricate lino blocks and hand-paints the prints. Floral still life is my first venture into oils as a medium. There are a good number of oil and acrylic artists on Bluethumb whose work I admire, not least Alina Hayes and Keanna-Belle Sacilotto.