Oil Painting Workshops in Currie, King Island

 

More than a dozen enthusiastic  painters attended two workshops conducted this month by Elizabeth Barsham, artist in residence at the King Island Culture Centre for January. Elizabeth is  not only an accomplished artist, but has been teaching adult drawing and painting classes for many years.

 In conjunction with her Return to the Island exhibition at the Culture Centre she invited interested islanders to come along and see how she creates her intriguing and idiosyncratic artwork.

 In the workshops Elizabeth explained how to select subject matter and compose it into a picture, first from a still-life arrangement and then from a selection of landscape photographs. Her informative and entertaining demonstrations covered ways to begin a painting, how to mix colours and how to apply the paint. 

Participants were fascinated to discover the difference between the way they looked at photographs and how they interpreted paintings, and to realize they need only four colours to create a satisfying picture.

Alison Milsom, who organised the workshops, said  “It was wonderful to learn about painting techniques; I love oil paint, but I've never really been shown how to use it before. I've been waiting for years to find out some of these things”.

 Elizabeth is currently employed by the Nolan Art Gallery and School in Hobart.

Victoria Dunn Exhibition

New Artist in Residence - Victoria Dunn
Works in Progress Exhibition
26th October to 31st October 

Victoria Dunn (2012), Sound, acrylic on canvas.

Image courtesy of the artist

Creative practice for me involves my experiences of the place where I live.  To be among the people and objects and natural forces that make a place is paramount to the pleasure of living and to my way of working.

When living in a new place the expectation is that there will be a phase of strangeness due to new perspectives on otherwise familiar aspects of living.   Everything is different yet familiar: interactions with people, housing, cooking, moving among objects that make up the landscapes and towns, and of course, the weather. 

Everyday life involves the constant crossing of boundaries or thresholds of experience.  The focus of my work on King Island will be the exploration through drawing/painting of what I perceive as the crossing of boundaries that traditionally delineate built and natural environments. 

The intention is, through my experiences of Southwest Victoria (where I live) and King Island, to make drawings in various environments including that of the studio.  From these works I'll create further work in my studio in Warrnambool.  An exhibition of these subsequent works is planned for 2013 at Scope Galleries (Warrnambool) and in the Cultural Centre, King Island.  
Victoria Dunn