Blog

Well, the break has been swift and enjoyable!  I hope your festive season was a happy one.  I am excited about being back in the studio.  It’s a bit like going back to the gym, however.  I am taking a while to loosen up!  – And loosen up I must as I have a lot of work to do after an encouraging start to the year with some nice sales.

A collection of things Rosie and I drew inspiration from yesterday. Coral trees, palm, tepee - the tepee reminds me of the cubbies I used to build out of sticks as a child.

Every Monday I work with a fellow artist friend, Rosie Lloyd Giblett.  She comes to my studio and we paint and draw along side each other.  I enjoy the break from being solo and it is good to bounce off one another and get feedback.  Our work is very different, however we share a love for the natural world having grown up on farms.

This year I have enrolled in an un-tutored life drawing class which will be on every Wednesday at the Cooroy Butter Factory.  Drawing provides the scaffolding of painting and is a discipline that I intend to keep practicing.

Apart from the making, I am in heavy planning mode for 2012/2013.  Here’s hoping I have some exciting announcements soon.

Another festive season is upon us.  I find this time of the year so hectic and hot it is often difficult to paint.  Once the children are on holidays I tend to put away the brushes for a while and surrender to being Mum and enjoying the kids.  By mid January I am always dying to get back into the studio and brimming with new ideas and plans for the year ahead.  This year I am making a few renovations to my studio to let more light and air in.  Have you made your Christmas wish list yet?  Perhaps a painting is what you need!  Merry Christmas to all.

Nature's tropical Christmas tree

Kate Warby is having a Christmas exhibition of her jewellery and she has invited me to include some paintings.  The show opens on Wednesday 16 November at Percolator Gallery, 132 Latrobe Terrace, Paddington.  We would love to see you at the opening or otherwise the exhibition continues until Sunday 20 November (10am – 4pm).  RSVP katewarbydesigns@bigpond.com

Triple strand bone and silver necklace and earrings by Kate Warby Designs

One of my friends recently asked me, ‘is it good or bad growing up in a creative family?’  You see, I come from a long line of artists.  My paternal grandmother was a wonderful painter, although she did not take it up professionally.  My mother, Anne Everingham, is a jeweller.  My brother, Robert Everingham is a successful ornamental blacksmith and my sister, Kate Warby has also just started making jewellery.  My maternal grandmother and great-grandmother were immaculately accomplished in the domestic arts of sewing and embroidery, as many of their generation were.  Another person in my extended family who has been a significant influence and friend was my mother’s cousin, Gillian Broinowski, a potter. Her obituary proclaimed that ‘life was a work of art’.

When you grow up in an environment like this you know no different.  It is the family you have been given.  It just ‘is’.  As children we absorbed it all as kids do, like sponges – a sort of osmosis.  My mother is a natural stylist and has the ability that many artists possess – to be able to make something out of nothing.  My paternal grandmother was the same.  As a widow and single mother, of very limited means she was always ‘as smart as paint’.  I loved her tiny little house in Sydney. The living room had a lush 70s green carpet and was jam packed with her wonderful abstract paintings.  We lived a thousand miles away, in the bush (Western Queensland) and she used to bring crayons and books when she came to stay.

I often wonder if our isolated childhood contributed to our creativity.  There were no shops, next to no television – reception was so poor it was ABC black and white fuzz if you were lucky and definitely no computers!  Our play revolved around making – making mud pies, creating tepees out of sticks and building roads and bridges in the sandpit with my cousin.  We had very few toys although I do remember loving my Lego.  And of course we were always encouraged to paint and draw.  Mum was always doing something.  Before she began making jewellery she was potting and sewing all our clothes.  For a brief period she took up enameling.  I was fascinated by the vivid colours of these creations.

So, I guess it was good!  Although we were never actively encouraged to go into the arts.  In fact I have been a bit of a late-starter. After school I went to university to to a degree in Communications and had a career in PR and marketing for ten years.  So I am busy making up for lost time and what a wonderful challenge it is!

'Harvest' by Amy Clarke 2011. Oil on canvas. 450mm x 600mm

As an artist, colour has always been my first love.   It is a wonderful way to convey emotion and a feeling.  There have definitely been times in my practice where I have been drawn to the dark or the light – perhaps a reflection of my internal world.    I find it so exciting when I come across a striking colour combination.  This can be anywhere and in the most unexpected places.  I have even been inspired by the colour descriptions in a good book.  At the moment the Australian native grevilleas are in full bloom and I am loving the mass plantings on the road side near Noosa – earthy yellows, purples and greens.  Has anyone else noticed the incredible palette in this year’s Burberry collection – hot off the catwalk in London Fashion Week?

An artist who has an innate sense of colour is the wonderful Idris Murphy.

Where have you seen some great colour lately?