The Swimmer Painting

I'm an artist from Sydney Australia, I'm a printmaker making mainly multi-colour reduction linocut prints, and I also paint acrylics on paper and stretch canvas. On occasion I also use watercolours and pastels. I grew up in a small fishing village in Australia, on NSW's north coast. Our house backed onto the beach, and I wasn’t allowed to venture there by myself until I could swim, so I taught myself how to do that. I would swim all day when it was warm, or I would explore the beaches, the plains and the bush after swimming across the river. I developed a love of nature early and when I was 12, I took up surfboard riding. This was a new sport and there was only a handful surfing along our coast. This was the mid Sixties, the age of flower power and hippies, peace not war etc. Later I traded surfing for sailing, but there remains the love of being in the elements and nature. My secondary School didn’t offer art, so it has only been recent that I have been able to take short course classes in art, but I am mainly self-taught.