I am an Australian Artist living near Crescent Head on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, about half way between Sydney and Brisbane. Its a great place to live.
I'm lucky to have the bush, beach and sea to be inspiration for creating paintings.
I have been creating artworks, including paintings and wall hangings, for over 35 years. I have been seriously painting for nearly 30 years and for the last 17 years I have been lucky enough to be able to work on producing art full time.
I am essentially a self taught artist (with a few instructions lessons from my Dad) and work mainly in oils, acrylics and ink. I also produce works in mixed media and collage. I also like ink drawing and sketching the landscape and life drawing.
In particular I like working with painting knives and brushes as it allows me to put the paint on thick and get down some good texture.
I also like working with various under-painting colours and textures as it can allow some very interesting effects to come through to the upper layers of paint. Oils are particularly good when working with transparent colours.
I'm especially intrigued by the "sgraffito" or scratching back effects that can be achieved through layers of colour and as a method of incorporating detail in thick painted textures. I like working on the surfaces of canvas on board, wood or hardboard and stretched canvas and linen.
On the subject and composition of the paintings ..... I've always been involved in the lifestyle associated with the coast and the bush from fishing, diving and surfing to bush walking and camping so it seems that many of my paintings are associated with beaches, headlands, bush, nature and landscape.
My paintings will tend to be places I've been or seen as well as composites of the various aspects of the site and the natural world that have appealed to me. So mix this with the beauty of the colour and the texture of paint and then I can really have some fun.
