About Me
I am a self-taught artist, born in London, UK, in 1948, currently living in Adelaide, South Australia.
I always wanted to be an artist, and like a lot of artists, I started drawing as soon as I could hold a pencil, and I would draw whenever I could. My childhood was complicated for many reasons, and I had to grow up fast and run the home from an early age, so there was no time for the pursuit of art.
We lived just outside London, so whenever I could I would go to the nearby Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common, both just short walks away. Here I came to love animals and formed a life-long bond with them and Nature. I learned so much about plants and animal’s during these times.
In 1968 I returned to college to finish my interrupted studies. Art wasn’t a viable choice then as a career, the proverbial artist starving in a garret wasn’t so far from reality! Science and Medicine were my other passions, along with photography, so I did further training and qualified as a medical researcher.
My working life was spent working in NHS hospitals, and once in the pharmaceutical industry in Drug Metabolism. Photography featured a lot in my work so I developed this skill. During my working years I did continue with art, here and there, but it played a very secondary role.
My passion for photography was shared with my husband, whom I married in 1983, and we spent most weekends together going to different locations taking photographs. I continued to do this when we came to Australia and have submitted images to a UK photographic agency since 2005.
We moved to Australia in 1986, supposedly for just three years, but a deterioration in my health prevented us moving back to the UK.
I had a long run of major health problems over the years after that so art wasn’t possible in any serious way.
When things finally returned to something akin to normality, and I had retired, I decided that if I was going to pursue art in any serious way it had to be now. I had started initially with graphite, but craved colour, so I moved on to watercolours, but we never really hit it off. So it was acrylics next, and I worked with those when possible for many years, mostly painting birds and animals.
I did many "Painting by Numbers" kits as a child, and never really liked them, too messy.
In 2016 I came across Ann Kullberg's web site. Art with coloured pencils? I was blown away by her sheer talent and was amazed at the realistic quality of her work. I couldn’t believe that coloured pencils could produce such amazingly detailed works of art!
I prefer to work in self-teaching mode and learn from my mistakes. My initial works were pretty bad, as it was a steep learning curve, so I bought a couple of kits online, and as I followed the instructions my drawing improved. I learned a lot about technique but most of all I learned to be patient! Coloured Pencil is a slow medium and not for folks who want instant results. There was very little information or help available then online, unlike today, where You Tube is swamped with coloured pencil art videos.
I did some drawings on my own and in 2017 a friend asked me to do portraits of her cats. I was keen but very unsure as to whether I was really ready. I needed advice. I was a subscriber to Color magazine and finally, after composing many emails to Ann Kullberg and deleting them, I drummed up the courage to send one. She replied quickly, and was so helpful and very supportive. I will be forever thankful to her and that she took the time to help me. She kindly featured some of my initial work in her Color magazine in August 2017, and this gave me a huge morale boost that I needed to carry on and persevere. I know that without her positive input at that time I would not still be drawing today. So, a heartfelt thanks to you Ann! She has been an inspiration and help to me and so many other coloured pencil artists over the years.
After that I experimented with as many Artist quality pencils and papers as possible until I finally arrived at my favourite combinations for wildlife and pets. I used Fabriano Artistico 300gms hot pressed paper for a few of years, and still use, but mostly I use Clairefontaine Pastelmat now. My go-to pencil choices are Faber-Castell Polychromos and Caran d’Ache Pablos and Luminance pencils, though I often use a few pencils from other brands as well, including Derwent, Holbein, and others.
In time, more commissions followed, with pet portraits dominating. Recently though I’ve started to create and draw fantasy scenes and I’m really having fun with them. I am creating a series of paintings called the “Wood” series, which features a small boy, and a variety of animals, in different situations.
As you can see, my journey with art has been long for many reasons, so I have come very late to what I think of now as my perfect medium. However, I have always felt that things, good and bad, happen for a reason, and I always try to find something positive in negative situations.
After all these years I am still learning, this medium is so complex, but so very rewarding, and it is wonderful to see that the interest in it is still increasing over time.
I really love coloured pencils and can fully understand other artist’s enthusiasm and passion for them. I like that it is a constant challenge and learning experience. Mixed media appears a lot now, and I often use pastel pencils, and pan pastels, with coloured pencils.
One aim in having this web site was to help promote coloured pencil as a medium, and if possible, to help others new to it, as I was helped, and I hope to add some useful resource materials down the track.
Feel free to share your own journey, or if you have any questions, I will do my best to give you answers, find the answers, or point you in the right direction. I’ve found the coloured pencil community to be very helpful and sharing of their time and experience, so don’t hold back as I did.
One important thing to add, never, ever, compare your work with others, you will most likely always feel disappointed, and don’t try and emulate another artist, develop your own style. If you enter competitions and fail, don’t take it too hard, sure it’s disappointing, but the judges are human, and as such have personal preferences, it doesn’t mean that you work isn’t good. Never give up!
If you are a fellow coloured pencil artist I wish you all the very best in your own artistic journey.
Gerry
