Art Tuition:

Over the years, Margaret sought out several tutors to further her technical knowledge and understanding of watercolours.  Prominent artists such as David K Taylor, Alvaro Castagnet,  Amanda Hyatt, John Orlando Birt and Joseph Zbukvic, helped Margaret to develop her own contemporary impressionist style of painting.

Although watercolour has been Margaret’s main focus she has also produces many paintings in oils, acrylics and pastels.

Margaret loves to explore new mediums and in recent years, has moved into mixed medium, silk painting, Watercolour on Yupo, encaustic wax and acrylic paint and medium poured on stretch canvas.

Mastering these new mediums, Margaret has held many workshops demonstrating techniques for silk painting on stretched Habuti silk as well as Yupo and acrylic paint poured on canvas.  Her acrylic pouring workshops have been very popular as students enjoy the process of creating amazing effects of colour and design.

Background:

Artist’s Statement

I have always been interested in art and, in particular, painting.  I was very lucky growing up to have wonderful teachers, very innovative and progressive.  Mrs Zeiker, whose husband designed stain glass windows for churches, and priests garments would have us painting to music.  With Mother Marcella we would go on walks around the grounds of Genazzano with sketch pad in hand, checking out the beautiful purple shades thrown by the shadows in Cyprus Walk.

When my children were at kindergarten I took up oil painting, tutored by Ron Reynolds and Marion Bruere.  My first masterpiece was a painting of Beethoven’s death mask (I’m surprised I didn’t call it quits after that).  Ron would have a box of black and white photographs for us to select our subject matter from; resulting in an exciting night of tonal painting.  The Sunday morning field trips to places like Pound Bend (in the middle of winter); Warrandyte were fun. 

I took watercolour lessons from Julie Ford at Mitcham Art Society, where I became Treasurer and Secretary for several years prior to moving to Kilmore in 2001.

I had 2 years of watercolour lessons from David K Taylor, and have attended workshops and been tutored by Alvaro Castagnet, Amanda Hyatt, John Orlando Birt and Joseph Zbukvic to name a few.

I would enjoy visits to Harold Freeman’s studio in Brunswick watching the mosaic murals taking shape and casting an eye over David Jack and Joe Attard’s oil landscapes, when the late Harold Freeman was State Artist.

I joined Seymour Art Society after moving to Kilmore, where I was public officer, secretary and promotional co-ordinator for a few years.  We are fortunate to have the Information Centre as neighbours sharing the historic old courthouse with us, and the volunteers there do a great job handling our sales. The Courthouse is open to the public 7 days a week.

These days I mainly paint in watercolour or acrylic, and occasionally have a dabble in pastel.  Though recently have rekindled the love of using oils, and have experimented with silk painting.  I did a workshop using encaustic was and am eager to experiment further using this medium.