Joseph Zbukvic
1St Prize Winner Biennial "Fabriano Watercolour 2022"
Watercolour Journey
See the Joseph Zbukvic's painting demo (1st part) held in Fabriano September 28th, 2024
My career as a professional artist now spans for nearly fifty years. However, as with most artists, my interest in art started much earlier than that when I was a boy growing up on a small farm not so far from Fabriano, just across the Adriatic in Croatia, near Zagreb.
I can remember drawing on anything I could find, to the amusement of farm workers around me.
It was my grandmother who saw my talent and bought me my first sketchbook. That is when the journey began.
Memories of that time still live on in the Haystack Builders painting in this exhibition, and any other works depicting farming or landscape.
The equine work also echoes those days, while the other works reflect that I eventually became very much a city person. I enjoy painting quieter moments in life the most most. They often go unnoticed, almost like a glance through a window of a moving car, and yet our lives are mostly made of such moments.
more about me...
My actual watercolour journey started much later after I emigrated to Australia, when I accidentally discovered that magic medium, during my industrial design course at a university in Melbourne. Watercolour is the only medium which continues to work after it’s applied to paper surface. All other mediums have to be physically manipulated by the artist in order to achieve the desired effect. Watercolour will stay alive until it eventually dries.while it’s still wet, it keeps on creating a plethora of magical visual effects by flowing and mixing on paper. Once I used it, I was completely taken by its untameable spirit and magic. I still keep learning from it with each painting and will never totally understand or tame it. It has so many more gifts to give. I actually see myself as a mere assistant when I paint. I am in charge when choosing the subject and what size to paint, and still while I am drawing it up, but after that first brush mark, watercolour is in charge. I merely respond to what it demands. Failure to not paint that way results in over controlled paintings with no spirit. I often say to my students that there are no mistakes when using watercolour, only gifts from watercolour heaven.
It may surprise many of you that most of the works in this exhibition were painted on location, plein air. It’s yet another gift from watercolour. It is light and easy to travel with and it dries quickly, so it’s easy to store the finished paintings. It saddens me to see all these modern aids which make tracing possible and encourage work from photographs. None of the great old masters we so admire today had a camera. Mother Nature is the best teacher there is. I still enjoy painting today as much, if not more so, as I did when I was struggling with my first
efforts so many years ago. My watercolour journey continues with more magic waiting to be discovered.
I do hope you also enjoy viewing this small collection of my works.
See the Joseph Zbukvic's painting demo (1st part) held in Fabriano September 28th, 2024
Links to the painting demo 2nd part and 3rd part
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watercolour 54 x 74
watercolour 54x36cm
watercolour 26 x 35
watercolour 54 x 74