Doing more than one face in one picture makes it much harder, both faces have to harmonize, and the two faces have to be related in size and colour.

This aboriginal warrior was painted on a hand-carved wooden shield.

Sketch of an Australian farmer.

This one was fun, each boy had slightly difference skin tones, and hair colour.

This was drawn from a book about South America, again it’s fun to match the skin colour

This lovely little painting by my daughter Sarah is a classic, illustrating what I believe, that a work of art can have an indefinable something that sets it apart from a photo, or another painting… a work of art can have the quality to let the observer into another space, an alternate ‘reality’ which taps into their emotions…

This portrait was drawn from an image in a book about New Guinea, the face was a classic for character and soul…

For reference, here is an image of a painting by Rembrandt, which I always admired… I love the lighting, the character, and the soul of the subject…

And here is a copy of Rembrandt’s painting by a person who has tried to imitate what Rembrandt has achieved… notice the different ‘soul’ of the image…

This is not to detract from this lady’s attempt, but to illustrate how art is not just about skill or technique, but about an indefinable something that makes the artwork believable and ‘real’ to the person observing the artwork… it’s about some sort of communication and dialogue between the artist and the observer

Once I thought “If I could just paint as good as Rembrandt, then that would be enough!” After many years of struggling to learn about drawing, colour, and technique, that if you could paint as good as a photo, then that would be enough! I would be ‘there’… but I found that painting as good as a photograph was not enough… that was just where it all started… What makes a good photo? What is beauty? What is a good picture? Instead of achieving the final result of my quest, I had just come to its beginning…

For example: this is the famous Rembrandt lighting… see the graduation not just from left to right, but from top to bottom, the light has an eggshell roundness… photographers still study Rembrandt… they go into the details of the inverted triangle of light under the eye and the use of a key light and reflectors etc… the main point is that art is not finished when you can ‘paint as good as a photograph’, that’s just when it all begins…

This is a pastel portrait of the Australian sculptor Hans Nielsen, well known for his beautiful and sometimes lyrical or even downright funny creations. Hans is recognized for his sensuous abstract sculptures in stone, as well as for his welded steel works.

This photo was taken in 1984 with one of Hans Nielsen’s sculptures commissioned for the Forest View Memorial Park in Whiterock Cairns.

This is an example of Hans Nielsen’s stone sculpture, equal to anything in the world for abstract stone sculpture.

Here is a beautiful example of his work in wood.

Welded steel examples from Hans Nielsen.

The Pioneer Group sculpture at its new home at the Herberton Historic Village in Herberton, Queensland, Australia.