Media

Gathering inspiration from the world around her – landscapes, birds and people – Debbie Anderson began painting professionally after the birth of her daughter in 2016. She has always been an artist, right from childhood, and finds huge motivation from her daughter. “I want her to grow up with a strong female role model – a mother who followed her dreams and succeeded.”
Art is a huge part of Debbie’s life, as necessary as breathing: “I am lucky enough to have a partner who believes in me and my talent and supports me while I pursue my love of art. I also need to paint to keep me on the level mentally. Painting regularly is therapeutic for me; if I haven’t painted in a week my family notice a bit of a dip in my mood.” As an emerging artist, Debbie is very proud of the successes and sales she has achieved through ArtEx in Napier and in the Pinehaven Arts and Crafts Fair. Most of her work is through commissions: “I love working with a client to create an artwork with meaning and soul for them. There is no prouder moment that seeing the joy on someone’s face when your artwork is just what they had envisioned or better.”
“After seeing Jenny’s demonstration, I ‘googled’ large flower paintings and eventually came across Birgit O’Connor of California, USA, and her online workshops.
Off I went, starting with her White Flowers online workshop. Later, I bought some of Tauranga artist Susan Harrison Tustain’s DVD’s, and learnt so much about watercolour painting and how to achieve the colours I wanted such as in leaves and skin tones. I watched many more training sessions by Birgit and others on You Tube throughout the nearly two years I have been painting. It is such a great way to learn – just like having a private tutor.
Debbie Anderson

Subscribe Today

Amatuer genealogist and novice artist, Christine Mottram (née Lovett), has always found beauty and inspiration in her environment. From her surroundings, she has coaxed colours of various hues and pedigrees to synchronize and unite in a bright display to celebrate the diverse nature of realism in portraiture and landscape. A resident of the highly creative community in Christchurch, Christine details her journey of realising her passions and chasing her dreams after retirement.
Born in 1941 in the historic Naval town of Harwich, UK, during the height of World War II, after the death of her father, Christine and her mother immigrated to New Zealand in 1950 to escape the aftermath of one of the world’s most horrific wars. On entering Aotearoa, the Lovett family stayed in Pigeon Bay, Banks Peninsula, before relocating and settling in Papanui, a shining example of why Christchurch has been dubbed ‘The Garden City’. The decision to move to New Zealand proved its worth from the beginning, and this fact was soon confirmed when Christine entered Papanui High School, where she was encouraged to explore her budding creativity in art classes taught by renown New Zealand artist John Coley. “An artist’s job is to communicate directly to the audience in a visual representation of ideas that cannot be communicated or explained in any other way”, said John Coley in a RNZ interview.
Christine Mottram

Subscribe Today

In 1996 Marcia Soanes attended some day time classes at ArtStation Ponsonby which included life drawing and painting, as well as beginner painting and drawing with Matthew Browne. Having been diagnosed with fibromyalgia at age 37, she left work and began to paint. She started with hardboard, which she undercoated and started using oil paints – copying pictures, or just painting what she saw out of the window. She wanted to learn more and began reading, learning and trying new styles and ideas. For Marcia, painting has turned out to be very good for her mind, her well-being and as a form of meditation.

Taking a break from painting during the early 2000s, due to studying and moving around a lot, she returned to Eden Terrace in 2011 and has been painting ever since. In 2018, she returned to ArtStation where she did two terms of portrait painting in oils with Alvin Xiong, who specialises in old masters painting techniques. “In this class have learnt new skills as I found it difficult in the past to learn portrait painting from books. Also I enjoy the social aspect of a class situation and meeting other fellow artists.”
Marcia’s inspiration comes from the old buildings which remain in Auckland, the way they have managed to survive the modernisation of the inner city. “I like to put people into most of my streetscapes, behind windows or caught at that particular moment in time. I love to put my personality into my work, making them slightly quirky rather than just photographic copies of a scene.” Vincent Van Gogh inspires her to try to express her emotions as he did by the use of colour, complementary and contrasting colours and his use of pure colour straight from the tube to canvas. “I love his bold brush strokes, and how his paintings disturb the viewer and make you think this is not just a ‘pretty picture’. This I like.”
See more about Marcia here.

Subscribe Today

Never having had any formal art training, Lisa Wallace has always loved to paint and draw. As a child she would write and illustrate short stories for other children to read and ran an ‘in class’ library. Previously she painted for pleasure and gifted artworks to friends and family, but two years ago she decided to follow her dream, sharing her art and painting with a wider client group. “I have a mind full of artworks that as yet I haven’t been able to create, the possibilities are endless.”

Lisa’s husband mentioned the fact, when selling their house, that people enquired about her artwork. Some of her work was sold some years ago and he suggested maybe she should see “if there was something in that”? “So painting for others began as a trial. I have been very blessed and people have received my art well, so I have been able to pursue it”, says Lisa.
Her inspiration comes from around her. She loves nature and is a people person. “I find myself drawn to faces and love that they say so much. I love to capture the soul of a person through their eyes. I also believe that art communicates in a way that is unique and triggers memories and can inspire for the future. I aim to encourage and connect with the deeper part of a person, speaking life and instilling peace.”
Always having loved Monet’s soft painterly Water Lilie’s, as well as the portraits and scenery painted by Van Gogh, with its broken deconstructed stokes, she adores the Dutch painters of old including the ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ by Johannes Vermeer. The classic poses and beauty and innocence captured through their brush-strokes really inspire her.
See more about Lisa here.

Subscribe Today

Jane Whiting spent the 70s working as a shift worker, with a lot of spare time during the day. She decided she needed a hobby and so contacted the Glenfield Community Centre and started weekly art lessons. Oil painting with Ida Eisse started her journey which then led to night school at Northcote College and Westlake Boys, while she worked day shifts.

Her earlier years were spent being creative in the garage with her Dad in the evenings where he would make wooden things and she would use his leftovers to make puppets, hammer all his nails into wood for ships and so on. She would go after school to his hat factory in Takapuna where they made school hats, and millinery was very much in fashion. Years later, Jane opened a hat shop after returning from the South Island. She trimmed all her own hats until she started having children, when the family moved to Waiheke Island.
All her work sold and colleagues and family started ordering paintings. While doing her OE in 1979, Jane studied and visited the art galleries and museums of Europe and Britain, then later travelled to the South Island on a working holiday, where she was inspired to paint in oils again.
While working as school secretary at Waiheke High School in 1990, the opportunity to attend a summer school at Waikato University with Lois McIvor became a turning point; she moved from a representational process to abstract, exploring colour and feelings. Jane also began to experiment with glazing and texture.
Contact Jane via her facebook page here.

Subscribe Today

Aside from some evening classes in Western Australia in the 1990s, Glenys Forbes’ achievements in pastel have been fuelled by hard work and a passionate enthusiasm for the medium. Glenys tells us about her artistic journey . . .

Pastel is my favourite medium. It is vibrant, instant, tactile, versatile = PERFECT!! I have tried most mediums but as I have a strong aversion to brushes, I always use pastel – in all its forms. My favourite piece of equipment would be my hands. My fingers are my small brushes and the side of my hand the big brush.
Portraits are my preferred subject, but I also enjoy fauna, flora and still life. Anything but landscapes, really. I am so passionate about all things pastel and the pure joy of using pastel as a painting medium. I became heavily involved with PANZ after coming home from Australia. My first ‘Purely Pastel’ National Art Awards and Convention was at Upper Hutt in 2005 and I was runner-up to the major prize. Nobody was more surprised than me. Then I ended up on the National Executive with a very busy role, convened the next Annual Awards and Convention at Mapua (2006), again at Dunedin (2010), and finally Mapua again in 2016. I also produced the bimonthly PANZ newsletter for six years. Mixing with so many talented artists and bringing tutors from Australia and the USA to New Zealand, has been a wonderful experience. See more about Glenys here.

Subscribe Today

He has always loved to draw, paint, create and invent and a career as an artist is something that evolved rather than him making a conscious decision to be an artist. “The term ‘artist’ is just a name for doing what I love.” Trent’s love affair with beautiful New Zealand is a constant inspiration for him. “I love this beautiful country and this is my inspiration, our towns, our rivers, our mountains, our beaches and our people.” He is also inspired by the work of John Singer Sargent and really loves the style of Russian Impressionist artist, Alexi Zaitsev. “We also have some great local artists here in Hawkes Bay and seeing their beautiful work inspires me as well.”

Trent explains what being an artist means to him: “I love the freedom to paint whatever I want, whenever I want. As a tattoo artist you are always trying to come up with pieces to keep your clients happy, and that’s exactly how it should be because you are working for them and they will be carrying your artwork around their whole life, so it’s all about doing what the client wants. As a painter I can paint what I like and if I am lucky enough that someone else likes it enough to put on their wall, then that’s great.”
He has always loved to draw, paint, create and invent and a career as an artist is something that evolved rather than him making a conscious decision to be an artist. “The term ‘artist’ is just a name for doing what I love.” Trent’s love affair with beautiful New Zealand is a constant inspiration for him. “I love this beautiful country and this is my inspiration, our towns, our rivers, our mountains, our beaches and our people.” He is also inspired by the work of John Singer Sargent and really loves the style of Russian Impressionist artist, Alexi Zaitsev. “We also have some great local artists here in Hawkes Bay and seeing their beautiful work inspires me as well.” Trent explains what being an artist means to him: “I love the freedom to paint whatever I want, whenever I want. As a tattoo artist you are always trying to come up with pieces to keep your clients happy, and that’s exactly how it should be because you are working for them and they will be carrying your artwork around their whole life, so it’s all about doing what the client wants. As a painter I can paint what I like and if I am lucky enough that someone else likes it enough to put on their wall, then that’s great.”

Visit Trent's website here.

Subscribe Today

“I am predominantly self taught, however I spent four years with a master artist Tim Quirke doing night classes and life drawing. This was structured and gave me insight and taught me the vagaries of the multitude of art mediums and styles. Tim has now returned to South Africa and in the last two years I have really moved forward in my artwork. I have developed my own style and I am enjoying experimenting in several mediums.

“A big motivating factor for me to think about pursuing a career as an artist was being able to express myself and have my artwork on display; to say something to another person and for them to see what I am trying to express and be understood. “Everyday life is my inspiration. I have worked in sales my whole life so have seen and been in so many people’s lives and situations. This has driven me to study the human world of portraiture and figurative art and endeavour to interpret and portray these traits and characteristics as part of my work. The style/medium is dictated by how I am moved by each occurrence. I feel you can only express what you have experienced through your life. “A colourist by nature, I really enjoy Titian and Cezanne and I love Courbet for his realism. At present I am loving some American artists such as Margaret Bowland and Burton Silverman and their expression of their experience of people they meet in their world. I am always looking at new art as it’s inspiring to see many new things and see through the eyes of other artists.

Visit Toni's website here

Subscribe Today

“I was raised in an artistic environment, my step-mother being an art teacher at a girl’s college in Kent, England. I was a shy child and became a quiet observer of the people and the interactions taking place around me. I found myself wanting to draw and paint the human form together with, what I perceived to be, the underlying emotions behind the exterior. My family travelled a lot and we lived in, and visited, a variety of countries. Due to the constant travel, I was exposed to different cultures, religions and art which broadened my interest in the unique artistic expressions of these cultures.

“One of the biggest motivating factors for me to pursue a career as an artist occurred when, as a young adult, I decided to live and work in Germany for a few years. The initial year there was a culture shock because I could not speak the language and many of the customs were new to me. Expressing myself was challenging and, even though I was living and working in a busy city, I felt isolated and found that I had to study peoples’ responses and body language on a far deeper level. This led me to question ‘identity.’ Without the full ability to verbally express myself, I began to paint my feelings of isolation. Some of these paintings were popular and were gifted to or sold to people in my immediate circle of friends and acquaintances. Discovering that my art was popular at that time was a boost to my self-esteem and encouraged me to continue and pursue a career as an artist. At that time, these experiences became my themes in the form of artistic expression and I believe that they are still relevant to my paintings today.
Visit Lorna's website here.

Subscribe Today