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

 
 

recent

On the weekend I handed this painting of a father and his three daughters

Saul Munro

In memory of Saul Munro who died this week... his funeral will be in Woolgoolga on the 10th of June. One of this area's 'characters', he had a little stall in the Windsor Craft Markets every Sunday where he would display his little 'historic' clay houses, and other creations... such as spinning tops.

I painted the portrait of Saul as a demonstration for MTAS as part of an 'Artists at work' weekend in the Regional Gallery in 2007 or 2008... Saul brought some clay in and was modeling a bust of me while I painted his portrait.


 

and a couple of photos from today of Saul's stall in Windsor Markets which was set up by his family, to let people  know, and to remember him.

Today's portrait

Today's portrait at WSU Hawkesbury Community Arts Workshop

Barn

I haven't done much plein air painting in the last few weeks, but I did get to this Barn at Wilberforce this morning, there was a lot of smoke haze from the burning off in the mountains.

From this week

a few portrait things from this week, starting a portrait from life with my once a week student/social afternoon, less than ideal lighting conditions and hopefully we will be able to do more in the next week or so

the regular portrait group at Richmond Art Supplies, a 60 minute Oil sketch 24 x 18,

 and a couple of pencil sketches for practice, not the easiest angle in a group situation...Charcoal and Conte

DEMONSTRATION

I don't do many demonstrations, but the Baulkham Hills Art Society asked me to do one this month, and as I had already done a couple of Oil Portrait demonstrations from life for them in the past I thought I'd have a go at quick portrait sketches in pencil from life... I haven't had much practice at that for quite a while now.

They are a friendly  group, and with their enthusiastic participation I did 5 different sketches in a variety of mediums and surfaces.

posted in the order they were drawn