Art Critiques: Color and Composition

Oil | Watercolor

I am often asked how long I have been painting and teaching in watercolor. I generally say “forever” and I have loved every minute of it.

There is nothing more rewarding than seeing the joy on artists’ faces and their body language when those ‘magical breakthroughs’ resonate and the ‘light bulb’ switches on and glows like a beacon. I know how the things I share in my teachings impacted on me when I was exploring and experimenting. Each new revelation lead to a new understanding and a new awareness that allowed me to find an exhilarating new path forward. These are the things that revolutionized my paintings and painting career and these are the things I love to share with artists.

For me, painting is about creating a work that evokes an emotion, tells a story – often resonating with the viewer as they draw from their own memories – from their own history. The magic happens when a painting invites the viewer to step into the world of the painting.

I love to share how artists can create a connection between the artist, painting and viewer. That connection often stays with the viewer long after they have left the presence of the painting. This is the magic I love to weave into my composition and my brush strokes – and to share with the viewers of my work and the artists I am mentoring.

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Watercolor | Printmaking

Christine Porter has been a full-time, fully self-supporting, professional artist since 1990. She is a painter, printmaker, teacher and writer. Her paintings tell visual stories about rural Australia, specializing in the iconic Australian shearing shed – to date more than one hundred different sheds, from the famous to the everyday, from Tasmania to North Queensland.

Based now in Lismore, in coastal NSW, she travels to spend time working on-site in a shed, usually at the request of the owners, then takes up to six months in the studio to complete a project. The initial sketches and ideas are in pen and wash, with the final works in watercolour. Sometimes artwork in other media evolves within a project, such as artist books. Often the ideas flow over to her printmaking practice, which is a place for her to explore more personal themes. Always the artwork she makes is a way to explore what is around her.

“Making artwork about shearing sheds is about the building. It’s about shape and colour, and patterns of light and dark. But it’s about the history too. Each board, post, gate, and the marks on them – accidental or deliberate – are layers of a past that can be read like the history of sheep and wool in Australia, and the story of this shed and its people”

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