Passion For Detail

This richly talented Queensland artist listens to relaxing music while she paints. She values opportunities to look at her work with ‘fresh eyes’ in the early morning half light.

Jenny Hartley is a Queenslander who has been an active painter since 1990 – creating works of art in graphite, watercolours and acrylics. Her childhood, spent on the family farm near Casino in New South Wales, installed within her a deep love of the natural environment – for native flora and fauna, and for the colour and light in the landscape. Her mother’s love for gardening also spawned her desire to create glowing translucent images of flowers in watercolours.

When Jenny was a child, no scrap of paper missed her attention. She loved to draw faces and animals. Her high school years presented new opportunities and she achieved ‘Dux’ for three years in art class and planned to continue her studies … but romance, marriage and children become her priorities for the next 20 years.

Once her children were raised, Jenny revived her love for drawing and painting. In 1989, she attended Murwillumbah TAFE and completed a non-certificate drawing class under Michael Battz. They did a series of nude studies; worked on imaginative themes; did field studies; and studied various artists and art theory. Over the next two years she attended the Brin Jones Art School of Fine Art, where her love of detail and realism grew. She then completed a course at the Queensland Institute of Graphic Art.

Jenny has completed numerous commissions and won many awards for her graphite portraits of children and animals. Her portraits are drawn from photographs. She has been an accomplished teacher in graphite – with her past students now winning prizes with their work.