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Home arrow Meet the Artist
Meet the Artist PDF Print E-mail
Sunday, 17 February 2008

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WoW There's no paint on me!!!
Moving to the big smoke Rockhampton when I was 10 and leaving behind my carefree county almost hillbillie childhood was a major turning point in my artistic development. Without the distractions of my cousins (6 of us in one classroom, oh the joys of a small school) I soon settled into Catholic private schooling.

My mother had always referred to me as her "Make and Do Baby" and she never seemed to tire of my endless quests to make something. My bedroom walls were covered in magazine collages and white space (blank paper, margins in books, school books and table surfaces) was not safe from my doodling pencils. My favourite art teacher in High School encourged us to think outside the square and my artistic natural drawing ability begain to see life in colour. I was influenced by the many different styles of art forms in school that I was exposed to, such as leather working, screen printing, knitting, macramee, nail art, collages with textures and the list goes on.

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Craft Madness!!
In 1990 I turned my "Make and Do" hobby into a full time home cottage business and opened "The Nightowl Crafters". My sister Penny and best friend Joy became my very handy off siders helping to produce new products every week to sell at our local markets. Many a late hour would we be gathered around the kitchen table cutting, glueing, sewing, painting simple items and designing new ideas. Hence the business name and I'm still called Nightowl today.

It wasn't until "Decorative Folk Art" painting caught my attention in 1995 that I truely found a style that I liked. I found a local teacher and booked myself in for classes. What was a comma? Well I learnt it was a brush stroke and 5 lessons later and I was on my own. I've included the 5 lessons in a gallery of their own for you to see how I went.

Village Square
Gold Coast
On a holiday to the Gold Goast in 1997 I had the opportunity to see how the big city markets were run and within 2 months I packed up 5 children and my bits and pieces and moved. I opened a shop in the new marketing venture at "Village Square" Hope Island and for the first time sold my products directly to the public everyday. Saddly the "Village Square" went bust after only been open 6months and I went back to working my business from home again. However 6 months was all it took to build up my own self confidence and I started teaching painting from home.

I took lessons myself from Lindy Judd as my weekly recreation and to refine my own skills. You'll find a hat box in the gallery that I did as a long term project with Lindy. I was introduced to oils for the first time while attending classes. Now this was a painting medium that had huge appeal to me as I could start a painting and days later come back to it and take up where I'd left off.

I've found teaching has become one of my daily blessings as I watch my students bring their projects to life. It's one of the reasons that I've included some of their works in their own gallery as I'm very proud of each one of their achievments. My students paint whatever they want and in whatever medium they like. Our classroom motto is "There's NO mistakes...only creative challenges!" and boy have I faced some challenges over the years. *Laughs*

Well I feel that another turning point is drawing near and I hope through this website and the huge market of Ebay that I'll be able to spread the joy of colour into more homes. Thank you for reading and I wish you and your loved ones much happiness and love.

*Hugs* Vickie J

P.S. I've had a few people ask me why I don't use my last name and the simple reason is that I couldn't find one that I could settle on or stay married long enough to keep one. *Blushes*

 
Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 February 2008 )
 
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