New Showroom and Gallery

Alan Chipperfield a very unique and special friend of mine. He is 85 years old and lives in historic Price House in Richmond NSW (circa 1815), which is also the showrooms and display area for possibly one of the best antique and antique furniture restoration businesses in Sydney.

Alan works daily on restoring antiques to their former beauty, but he is also multi talented, plays the piano daily, is an avid chess player and has a razor sharp mind. He and I get together once a week to work on  painting portraits... just one of his many goals!

He is also extremely proud of his sons, one of whom is a world renowned architect and the other a journalist.

Recently Alan decided to convert an old dilapidated storage shed  into a Showroom and Gallery, and wanted to display some of my paintings in it.

It's almost finished, the. lights went in yesterday.

Brian Jones Memorial Exhibition

A special exhibition was held last Sunday at the  Hawkesbury Regional Gallery,  to commemorate Brian Jones's life, and his contribution to the Hawkesbury area. The paintings were by Brian Jones, and some of the  works he had donated to the Friends of the Hawkesbury Regional Gallery ( and also my portraits of Brian). Friends and colleagues were able to gather together to honour and remember him. Speeches were given by Hawkesbury Councilors Paul Rasmussen and Christine Paine, and Artist Greg Hansell among others.

Brian Jones

Brian Jones was a gentle man, he contributed greatly to the Hawkesbury and to the Arts, and will be missed!

I had intended to paint him like this with his cane,  inside the Regional Gallery, but  painted him in his garden in Freemans Reach

Dave

a  portrait of 'Dave' from a recent session at Richmond Art Supplies
24 x 18 Oil

Hawkesbury Artists Fair

Computer problems have been/are  holding things up lately, here are some of my paintings on show at the moment at the Hawkesbury Regional Gallery until the 4th of December as part of the annual Hawkesbury Artists Fair. The Exhibition was opened by the new Hawkesbury Mayor Mary Lyons-Buckett.

from this week

a portrait from the last portrait group at the WSU Richmond, after a little refining

and another that has been sitting around for a while that I decided to do a bit more to

and another painting that has also been around for a bit that I refreshed and put into the Glenbrook Life drawing group exhibition on the weekend

Open Weekend

it was a fairly busy day today. first a portrait demonstration at St.John's Church Fete' at Wilberforce, the sitter was well known local artist Russell McKane
and then on to the Piggery Studio which is open this weekend as part of the' Hawkesbury Artists and Artisans Trail' open weekend and also the 'Combined Art Societies of Sydney' "September is Art Month"

some photos of the demo painting, round about 80-90 minutes,

 

 and of my studio space at The Piggery

adding frames

Just  seeing how they look with a frame around them, at the Piggery

recent plein airs

some rain and then some computer problems have slowed things up somewhat, but here are a couple of plein airs from last week's regular  get together

and some I have been working on  at Wheeney Creek

latest portraits

the recent portrait at Richmond Art Supplies

and an outdoor sketch done at 'my student's' today

a bit more plein air

one more visit in the sunshine to do a bit more to this one

and from last week's outing with the plain air group

Works in Progress

I started a painting at one of my favourite locations around here, one that I haven't painted at for a few years now.

and a small portrait from life  that I'm doing alongside my regular Monday 'student'

Pat

this month's oil portrait at Richmond Art Supplies

'Barns'

on 4th & 5th of June The Friends of the Hawkesbury Art Community &  Regional Gallery Inc (FOHACARG) held an exhibition  called "Barns" at the Deerubbin Centre in Windsor.

Paintings, drawings and etchings with iconic images of barns dating from the early 1900s sourced from the collections of the Friends of the Hawkesbury Art Community and Regional Art Gallery (FOHACARG)  were hung alongside works by contemporary artists.

There was also a  talk on "Hawkesbury Barns" by graham Edds, an authority in historic Australian architecture. Graham completed a 'Slab barn Study' for the Hawkesbury Council and was able to provide a lot of information on the early barns in this area, their numbers, methods of construction, issues of preservation and their historical significance. 

As the third settlement in the Pioneering History of Australia the Hawkesbury area has a unique history  and a priceless heritage which is in danger of being lost as these structures are allowed to deteriorate and disappear.  

Australia doesn't have a good track record of preserving it's history, which is often not appreciated and therefore  is neglected. there are current legal disputes involving residents fighting to save local history from insensitive bureaucratic decisions.

My three paintings in the exhibition

Barn at Wilberforece

 Shed at Windsor

 Barn at Tebbutts Observatory Windsor