During my 38 years as a professional artist, I have become well known for painting animals – more by accident than design; in particular horses, cattle and dogs.
Strangely enough, one of my best-known works is the bronze sculpture of Matthew Flinders’ cat ‘Trim’, who resides on the window ledge of the New South Wales State Library in Macquarie Street, Sydney.
When I was a student at the National Art School, a very enlightened teacher was sufficiently interested in my efforts to point out the similarities in the anatomy of very many animals – which all evolved from basically the same structure.
Every such animal has a head, a neck, rib cage, shoulder blades, forearm, elbow, lower arm and a great variety of forms of structure representing the human wrist and hands. Strangely enough, a lot (even with hooves) still have a similar bone structure. All these animals also have backbones, hips, buttocks and thighs.
To make convincing drawings, it is essential to understand how your subject is constructed – no matter if it is a house or a horse.
Just to make life more interesting, see if you can count the number of breeds of horses. All are instantly recognizable as being equine, but you have to decide which of their features are different.
It does not matter whether the animal is large or small; the head shape of all breeds is fundamentally the same. A thoroughbred has a straight nose; whereas the beautiful, graceful Arab has a distinctive inward kink to its nose. It is an altogether more delicate animal with slender cannon bones and hooves. This does not mean that one animal is more beautiful than the other; just that they are different.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der No 171-Ausgabe von Artists Palette.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der No 171-Ausgabe von Artists Palette.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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Eye of Observation
Draw, draw, and draw some more; develop your artist’s eye of observation. Sterling advice from a lady who believes that seeing shapes in paintings requires a truly ‘arty’ eye.
Pelicans To Portraits
This lady has painted everything from pelicans to portraits. She has completed commissions including cats, dogs, horses, possums, numerous beach scenes … and even a Scottish piper.
Gregory John Brennan: Lost Profession
Looking back on his early career as a bulldozer driver, this rural New South Wales painter laments the days when he was too young to appreciate his outstanding potential as an artist.
Pastels: Once We Were Important
A simplified and well named painting tells a powerful and interesting story. This clever pastel artist is delighted to share her techniques for the benefit of others.
Fibre Art
This artist feels that the hardest lesson she had to learn was to believe in herself … and once she did that, everything started to fall into place and her confidence grew.
Water Lily Magic
Instead of paper and paint, this artist uses fabric and threads … and she uses a sewing machine instead of a brush. The textures, colours and prints of fabrics thrown together with threads fascinate her, and often give inspiration for her designs.
Loading Wheat – 1920s
It is rare to see an artist displaying this level of skill and understanding in capturing the activity and atmosphere of bygone days from Australia’s agricultural history.
‘Jama' – King Cheetah
This exquisitely talented lady believes that every artist has failures … but it is important to remember that every success is better than the one before.
Blahuta's Ute
Early in the year we ran a feature about ‘Utes in the Paddock’ – a landmark project by several notable artists. In this article, one of those artists shares his story and some of his views … and describes the process of creating his own piece of an amazing collaborative work.
Artists' Easels
Many important tools are employed by artists in creating their paintings. Artists’ easels are now available in a host of styles and configurations to enhance the creative process. Some of your favourite art materials suppliers are more than pleased to highlight a selection of the many products being offered.