Hi friends and welcome to episode 117.  It’s been a wild month for me as I’ve had my second solo exhibition, ‘An Ornamental Education’ running here at the art gallery of Ballarat.  It’s been an incredible ride having my first exhibition at a public art gallery and I wanted to make sure that I shared it with you before it ends on 14thApril. I’ve created a full guided tour for you on my YouTube channel. I really hope you head on over there to check it out, because the audio for this episode makes a whole lot more sense when you can see the artwork.  But nevertheles ..read more

It’s been a while between episodes, so in this chat I’m filling you in on some rather big changes that have been happening in my art practice and, well, my whole life as a consequence.  As I’ve been working on my latest solo exhibition ‘An Ornamental Education’ (Art Gallery of Ballarat 7th-14thMarch 2024), I’ve been working intimately with historical sources for the first time, and it has lit a big fire in me for this method of making research-based artwork.    It gradually became clear to me, with my art history background, that what I had created already would be a great ..read more

Welcome to episode 115 of the Studio insider art podcast.  Today’s episode is once again an audio extract from my latest YouTube video.  If you’d like to check out the visual to everything, I’m talking about then I highly recommend that you pop on over to the YouTube video and check it out.   In this episode I’m taking you along with me as I do some historical research at the State Library of Victoria that relates to my latest exhibition.  I’m researching an early Victorian female Botanical artist and writer called Louisa Anne Meredith, who migrated from Engl ..read more

Welcome to episode 115 of the Studio insider art podcast.  Today’s episode is once again an audio extract from my latest YouTube video.  If you’d like to check out the visual to everything, I’m talking about then I highly recommend that you pop on over to the YouTube video and check it out.   In this episode I’m taking you along with me as I do some historical research at the State Library of Victoria that relates to my latest exhibition.  I’m researching an early Victorian female Botanical artist and writer called Louisa Anne Meredith, who migrated from Engl ..read more

Finishing difficult paintings.  I think we all have one (or two or three) faced against a wall or at the back of a cupboard, those difficult paintings that we just can’t seem to face completing. I know that you know what I’m talking about. Well, I have some artistic medicine for you today.  In this month’s episode, I’m walking you through 20 tips that I use in my own art practice to help me finish difficult paintings. All tips are super practical and down to earth and I hope will really help you find your flow with completing those tricky artworks. If you'd like to see me working on ..read more

It’s just me on the podcast today and I’m doing something a little different. I’m undertaking my Painting as a Practice challenge this month and I thought it would be fun to talk you through all the fantastic things that I’ve learned in the first week of my practice month about painting on timber panels and raw linen. Bringing you inside my studio practice in a more practical sense has been something I’ve wanted to do for ages, so in order to make this chat as rich as possible, I’ve made a Youtube video about it too.  So if you would like to see the video that accompanies this podcast, bu ..read more

In today’s episode, I’m chatting again with Steven Patterson, the CEO of one of my favourite paint brands, Derivan Matisse.  Steven and I first chatted in episode 96, so if you’d like to hear more about his journey with this fabulous and innovative Australian paint brand, then be sure to go and check that out in the archives. We identified in that conversation that we both had a fascination with colour and the history of pigment and thought it would be great to have another chat, this time focusing on Steven’s vast knowledge in these areas. So join us as we dive deep into how it is that w ..read more

In today’s episode, Steph and I are chatting about how our recent decision to pursue exhibiting our artwork has enriched our art practices in a variety of ways. Since re-orienting our art businesses to include exhibiting, both of having found that we are reaping huge benefits in the way we are approaching day-to-day studio time. For both of us, it now includes more of the deep and considered exploration of materials and techniques that come with upping the ante with what we are creating.  We are also both valuing the process of diving deeper into the less tangible moments of creative expl ..read more

In today’s interview, I’m chatting with Irish-born, Sydney-based artist Marnie McKnight.  I first fell in love with Marnie’s beautiful abstract expressionist artwork over on Blue Thumb. Since getting to know more about her, I’ve marveled at how she moves through different styles of painting and mediums in her practice with ease.  We had a great conversation about how Marnie keeps focused on the joy of the painting and how this focus has shaped her thriving art business. We chat through how she approaches selling artwork without a huge social media following and how she has gained cla ..read more

In today’s episode, Steph and I are chatting through our processes with overcoming limiting beliefs we’ve held in the past and exploring opportunities that we once thought we’d left behind. For me, this has happened in my desire to exhibit, which I never thought that I would do again.  In this episode, I unpack some of my process of realizing that this was something that I really wanted to do again and then going on a journey to heal old wounds and create permission for myself to do that. For Steph, it’s happened in coming back to realize that she wanted to fully embrace a ceramics practi ..read more