Regina Goetz

I have always dabbled in art and photography, but never seriously until I reduced my workload as retirement loomed before me around 2017.  I grew up in Williamstown, went to local schools, and always enjoyed art.  I ended up in a science stream at high school to widen my possibilities at uni, so no art for a number of years.  I trained and worked as an architect after high school & later on as landscape architect to widen my employment opportunities in the early 90's.  Part of that study focussed on graphic and drawing skills - draughting, sketching, rendering in pen & ink, and perspective drawing - from first principles - well before computers entered the world. This included a few painting techniques in watercolour and gouache; I did a bit of oil painting for a while, but then work took over for 30 odd years or so.

Just prior to retirement, I commenced art classes at Footscray Community Arts Centre with Darien Pullen, a local artist & sculptor, and with his guidance started painting again after a gap of many years, firstly in pencil, then watercolour, acrylics, and eventually with oils - which I prefer.  For the past couple of years, I have been taking life drawing classes in charcoal, also with Darien at FCAC - excellent classes, however they are no longer available so over the past year or two, I have been searching for new avenues to continue, as they say, my art journey......

This included a number of workshops and classes with the Victorian Artists Society - an impressionism workshop in oil from still life with Ray Wilson; a watercolour workshop with Ted Dansey, and another focusing on maritime art with Julian Bruere; and more recently with Lee Machelak who teaches a technique of oil painting in the traditional manner of tonal impressionism with subjects from life - still life and portraiture.  I was a bit confused about tonalism, wanted to learn and understand the process, and found the class very informative and challenging, and this year I am trying to include elements from each class in my painting. 

I am still learning and developing as I go, just happy to be able to paint, and since joining the Wednesday morning class last year, have found further inspiration from HBAS and the people I have met.  In the coming year I am looking forward to continuing to further develop skills in plein-air painting, something I have wanted to do for some time - looking at the changing light in the landscape and trying to interpret what I see in a painting.