Teddy Bears, Little Folk, & Aliens: I like teddy bears—I remember drowning one at two or three years (1956-7), accidentally in a paddling pool—he was called Conks. Poor thing, went all brown afterwards, the sort of bear now worth money as a collectible on the Antiques Roadshow. Cuddly toy bears have layers of meaning. Hence my own childhood drowning memory and more recent experiences; Freud would suggest repressed memories, but I prefer the...

WORKING IN SERIES Sometimes the creative juices are flowing, sometimes the need to explore different techniques is burning, and sometimes something is stuck and needs to be painted or worked out—working in series helps all these issues. My past ceramic practice required me to reproduce a design several times and to avoid the worst aspects of reproduction, that is, the copying of a design exactly. There is undoubtedly skill in throwing a small...

FINGER PAINTING When I was younger and didn’t know better, I painted in acrylics and oils with my fingers much to the consternation of other painters around me. Real artists used proper brushes don’t you know? I won some prizes with my finger paintings, three at fence painting competitions—do people remember what that means? Large blank panels about 180 x 120 cm were wired to a wall or fence and newbie artists would try to win a prize for best...

THE TEN MINUTE PORTRAIT After a while observing and drawing you can produce a strong image of a face in a few minutes—providing they are the right few minutes for you as the artist. Quick heads have just a few elements, and you know straightaway whether you have a successful portrait or not. In this post I have included a small gallery of portraits I have painted quickly. Tap or click on the thumbnails to open up a description and basic...

My creativity is going into new places—some changes I deeply regret, others I recognize as inevitable—I am returning to painting having back-grounded it in the past to my ceramic practice while creative non-fiction writing is enthusing me too; I am turning disappointment into determination. Drawing with ink is a start. Click on any image in the gallery to see more detail. Art is difficult. Every artist struggles with the difficulties of making,...

The opening painting is in a portfolio of works presented for my NM3001 (New Media) artist assessment at James Cook University, Townsville, North Queensland, Australia. All the works in that portfolio are examples of recent art practice and represent my exploration of the local landscape as a subject for examining my personal emotional responses with the view of seeing art as the most human of interventions for healing of well-being. ‘I draw...