During a scientific career as a mycologist, I did many drawings portraying the technical details of microfungi in pen and ink. In my artistic career I initially moved away from technical drawing, painting landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes in pastel and watercolour. Increasingly, however, the pen has lured me back into drawing the natural world.
Moving to Phillip Island has re-ignited my love of boats and drawn me into the wonderful world of waterbirds and honeyeaters and other plants and animals. The combination of pen and ink with watercolour provides a distinctive way of treating these subjects.
I am inspired to draw, as much as anything else, by the technical challenges of turning a complex array of visual inputs into a single well-expressed idea rendered mostly in black and white. I relish the permanency of ink, and the consequent absence of second chances – make a mark and learn to live with it!
Every painting is an experiment, a pitched battle between my abilities and inabilities to control composition, colour and tone and the technical aspects of the medium being used. If the result is unexpected, so much the better. Whatever the result, something is always learned, and who knows? One day I might get the hang of it!
Above all, my paintings have to tell a story through a combination of composition, atmosphere, texture and movement.
I am a member and former councillor of the Australian Guild of Realist Artists (AGRA).
See more of my work on our webpage: www.jandistudiorhyll.com and find me on Instagram @phungus15
