'Tui on Sunset' by Carolyn Judge - won the Raye Hannam trophy at the 2017 Easter Show art show for the best watercolour in show.
I have been a full time artist for over ten years, with 15,000 hours of ‘practice’.
For most of those ten years I worked with watercolour. It’s a difficult medium to learn and takes lots of time and patience. My creative goal was to be able to paint any subject with watercolour, so that I wasn’t restricted in any way.
Learning to paint portraits in watercolour was the biggest challenge. Watercolour portraits are rarely seen, especially good ones. However I reached a point with watercolour I was happy with and began to teach it.
Looking to further enhance my skills I decided to also work with acrylic ink. I use the inks and watercolours together in some paintings, as they can be complementary. Also, Acrylic Ink opens up the possibility of painting on any substrate. I now paint my inks on wood panel, where again I can still also use watercolour if I choose.
I paint professionally supplying shops, painting commissions and entering exhibitions. I have 26 images published on greeting cards that are sold through Paper Plus stores, and I sell prints through 3 Auckland shops.