About Serena
Born in London, I migrated to Australia with my family at age 12 (ten-pound Poms!)
I had a very creative upbringing. My mother, a well-known painter potter, encouraged myself my three sisters in the visual performing arts so that we were artists, musicians, ballet dancers etc.
I trained in Commercial Art96 Design Illustration, gaining a scholarship to attend Art College. Then I worked as designer in a Poster Company, in advertising agencies here in the UK, as a press artist for many years for the Courier/Sunday Mail.
Since having a family, I have worked freelance from my home studio. Work has been as varied as posters (the old art of ticket-writing), murals, sign-writing, stage sets props, banners, trade fair backdrops and graphic design (logos, business cards, letterheads.)
House Portraits
I have always maintained a passion for art. I fill sketchbooks wherever I go inspired by the world around me. The beauty drama of landscapes. Compositions created by man nature. The human figure the nude, dancers in motion, figures on a beach. Cottages in Tasmania, a barn in a ploughed field.
My house portraits grew out of drawing many different houses on my travels.
When a shoulder injury surgery curtailed working on a large scale, the idea formed that I could promote this as part of what I do as being not so physically demanding.
I had some years earlier painted my mother's house as a birthday present for her, which led to a subsequent commission by some friends who were very proud of their renovations. It has proven to be a very popular idea I have completed many commissions.
A painting captures more than the physical appearance of a place. It captures the spirit, the composition utilises the best of the setting to convey the atmosphere of a property and show its best side! I can also leave out or disguise powerlines, poles, meter boxes etc. The house is immortalised!
As in my own experience, the value of the artwork increases
with
time when my mother passed away, I received the painting back
and it
serves as a fond reminder of the past.
I have often been asked
to
include the family pets in a painting; some that are already in
heaven,
once again grace the front steps or veranda (worked from a photo)
in the
house portrait. Others I have drawn from life only to hear they
have
passed away but are also immortalised in the picture.
Some are of homes long demolished, recreated in a painting.(Reference supplied by photos, descriptions in one case reading a book written by a relative!) Some I have had to show with renovations completed garden landscaped! One had to be shown how it was in earlier times, so I had to deconstruct the renovation!!
I work in all media except oils (at present), but it seems watercolours and pen ink are the most popular. Acrylics soft pastels produce a more painterly effect.
As a change from houses, I have produced a portrait in pastels of a row of baby possums on a branch for a wildlife carer. A souvenir for her when her babies are released to the wild.
And lately I have been commissioned by store restaurant owners to capture their businesses for posterity!
The portraits make an ideal birthday, anniversary or wedding present that lasts forever!