Kylie Kitchen
A Gisborne artist who took up portraiture just 18 months ago at the request of Coburg Football Club is working on an Archibald Prize entry.
Kay Le Vannais, a landscape artist and oil painter, found her talent for painting personality when the Coburg FC secretary asked her to paint a life member.
"I agonised over it and I wanted it to be perfect," Kay said.
"On the presentation night ... when they put the curtain aside, he just broke down and cried.
"I felt like I had this intimate relationship with this guy. I tried to get the character of this guy in the painting and I'd never met him.
"Being encouraged by that I've gone on to do several other (portraits)."
Kay rediscovered her high school love for painting seven years ago, but only started calling herself an artist three or four years ago.
She started out at workshops in Macedon with the Emerging Artist Group led by Kate White.
"She just said to me one day, 'Kay I don't really need to help you anymore', she said, 'you're just going so well'.
"I just felt inspired. I started out painting landscapes, and that worked quite well for me. I sold some of those, that gave me a bit more courage to keep going with things."
As she earns her name as a portraiture artist, Kay has challenged herself to produce an Archibald entry.
"I've actually been concentrating on portraiture. It just awakened something in me, I loved it," she said.
"I find an attachment to the person, I bring their personality out in their face. I find that to be more gratifying than just to be doing a landscape which has a different energy."
Kay's Archibald subject is Kyneton harpist and craftsman, Huw Jones.
Kay met Huw when visiting his wife, and her friend, Margaret recently.
"Huw came out to take the dog for a walk. He had a big jacket on and he had a beret on and his white hair was sticking out under it, and his face had a lot of character," Kay said.
"He just looked like a Welsh countryman and I just though that is such a beautiful look."
Kay later raised her proposition with Huw, to be the subject of her Archibald entry.
"He played his harp for me, I could feel that this was a moment," Kay said.
"You could actually feel that he loved what he was doing. He had this sort of far away look on his face.
"His music put him in another world. That's what I wanted to paint."
"His music put him in another world. That's what I wanted to paint" - Gisborne artist, Kay Le Vannais
Kay took a candid photo of Huw playing the harp, which she is modelling her painting on.
"If I showed you the look on his face when he was actually playing, it was the love that he had for what he was doing," she said.
"It was not just that he would pluck the strings. It was not only to see but also to feel, it was beautiful, the connection he has to that instrument."
Huw is a former Melbourne Symphony Orchestra harpist, even having a practice room dedicated to him at the ABC Southbank studios.
His other talent is as a craftsman, well respected for making cuckoo clocks, wall clocks, harps and other instruments.
"He has done so many wonderful things in his life he has achieved a lot. He's a very intelligent but very eccentric man," Kay said.
ART TRAIL
Kay is among the artists set to get professional exposure and promote this art region, signing up to the Macedon Ranges Art Trail.
After seeing the story, 'Trail to reveal artistic treasures', in last week's Guardian, Kay joined the list of artists, galleries and art groups registered for the project.
"The concept of this art trail appealed to me, (the Macedon Ranges) is where I started and the inspiration is here," she said.
"I'd like to have contact with other artists. It will enable me to further my interest in this field and to be more serious in that part of my life.
"It's going to enhance what I'm doing and I want to be involved in it. If I can contribute in any way I'd like to as well."
Registrations for the Macedon Ranges Art Trail close Friday, contact Nadine Hartnett at nhartnet@bigpond.net.au or on 0439 399 838.
