Art and Abart

On my way to Bayreuth (pre-Covid) to hear Wagner's operas Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal I stayed with friends in Hamburg. Sitting on ...

The Art Gallery of NSW is helping their members stay sane in lockdown by organising art challenges. There are prizes to be won, like the box...

Enjoy the year ...

In 2005 I attended a life drawing course in northern NSW.  'Life drawing', for those not familiar with art lingo, is the practice of...

Paris Opera singers would have known these ceilings well in the twentieth century when the Palais Garnier was the home of the Paris Opera.  ...

Yaay! I got my copy of Blue Tulips: A Love Story in the mail today! It is looking good ... quite a hefty tome at 430 pages. Blue Tuli...

Pears and Frangipani Acrylic on Canvas, 30 x 40 cm Warmth, summer fruit and flowers, a general relaxed feeling - they all conspire to ma...

Ferry with sheep The Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart is a Museum you don't easily forget. I was there two weeks ago but i...

On a fine day Mount Egmont dominates Taranaki roads. Today was a beautiful day so as I drove south from New Plymouth I had the constant comp...

In the Hamburg Kunsthalle After an unsuccessful attempt to sketch the fountain in the middle of the Inner Alster lake from a cold and w...

Becoming an artist Teachers have such power, though they may not think so themselves. So many people have told me that they can't ...

The conversation about artists and politics has been re-ignited by the boycott of Sydney Art Biennale by artists who felt compromised by...

Push down the barriers and you are bound to get bad press. A review of the Yoko Ono Exhibition by a Sydney art critic listed her accomplishm...

When I was in Dunedin I took a ceramics class and to my surprise I learned to love clay. Beginner students often experiment to see how thi...

Lisa Harper-Brown sings I drew the lovely Lisa Harper-Brown as she sang for the Wagner Society of NSW some time ago. The society late...

  I have just published Blue Tulips , an autobiographical book about love, music and art.  Love -  music - art,  what more could you poss...

The scout hall in Umina is a pleasant place with wooden floors and quiet surroundings. Just the place for watercolour classes. I am busy mak...

The art gallery in Bremerhaven has a sign on the window saying: 'Art ... nothing else'. The building is rather small but with an in...

The walls of the Ptuj Castle are covered with painted canvases. They are nailed to the walls along the edges, floor to ceiling. I decided w...

Terracotta bowl with slip edge. It was fired at 1120C and the terracotta colour is not quite as rich as the clay bowl with music which was ...