June Activity Night: Junk Journals

Have you heard of Junk Journals? What are they and how are they made and used?

Find out on Monday 23rd June at 7.00-9.00pm at Louis Joel Arts Community, Art Room. FREE for all.

Create your own Junk Journal to take home and complete. Some materials and equipment will be supplied.

Things you can bring along from home, if you have them.

Junk paper: old books/magazines, old calendars, packaging, used envelopes, paperbags, wrapping paper, paper doilys, greeting cards, flyers etc. etc.

Equipment: Scissors (not best dressmaking), ruler, pencil, paper cutter, stapler, awl.

COME ALONG: Monday 23rd June , 7-9pm at Louis Joel Arts Community, Art Room

Hosted by Christine Macpherson

Through the Artist’s Eyes

THROUGH THE ARTIST’S EYES exhibition at the Hobsons Bay City Council to be launched on Friday 4 July at 6pm.

See below for your INVITATION TO ENTER including the conditions of entry, along with the Jotform entry.

 Kindly note these critical dates:

• Entries Close: Friday 27 June, midnight

• Bump In: Wednesday 2 July, 9:30am – 10.30am

• Launch: Friday 4 July – 6pm start – please arrive on time!

• Bump Out: Thursday 31 July, 3pm – 4pm

We would really like to see some new members exhibiting – it’s a wonderful opportunity to showcase your work. Don’t be shy!!

‘5 x 7 Art Prize’ 2025 Exhibition

This year’s Hobsons Bay Arts Societies ‘5 x 7 Art Prize’ Exhbition was once again well received by all, with 271 works by 132 artists in the open section, and 9 school group entries making a total of 475 little artworks on display! This year’s theme was Patterns. 

Hobsons Bay City Council Mayor Cr Daria Kellander officially opened the exhibition as well as being on the judging panel with Hobsons Bay City Council’s Tania Blackwell and LJAC Manager Karen Ingram. 

Open Section

1st Prize: Inside Outside -Sally Bilbao 

2nd Prize: Patterns of Destruction - Belinda Nieuwesteeg

3rd Prize: Hobsons Freight Rail Weave -Belinda Nieuwesteeg

Highly Commended

Patterns on Patterns - Kate McCracken-Bell

Kookaburra - Lukas Kaspar 

Zincworks - Jenny Viney

School Section

(judged by Gaye Pereira-Jackson & LJAC admin Hannah Cheevers)

1st Prize: Seaholme Primary School

2nd Prize: Williamstown Primary School

3rd Prize: St Margaret Mary’s Primary School, Spotswood

Congratulations to all who took part, and special thanks to Hobsons Bay Arts Society’s curating team and other members who stepped up to assist with the many tasks such a large exhibition brings with it. 

We are looking for a dedicated team of Hobsons Bay Arts Society volunteers to organise this exhibition moving forward; if you have time, love working in a team, interested in learning the ropes, and having fun, please consider stepping up!

Kirsten Craggs - Exhibition Coordinator

West Side Stories

What a fabulous launch on Friday 14th February! Thank you to everyone who attended to celebrate the official opening of this wonderful exhibition.

We appreciate HBAS members and also those who work and live in the municipality of Hobsons Bay who participated; the quality of work submitted for the exhibition was outstanding. Several pieces were sold during the launch event.

Local artists told their story of what living in our West meant to them – and we had on display a diverse range of iconic western suburb images in all mediums! The Westgate Bridge, Newport Power Station, our coastal parks, Newport Lakes, Jawbone Reserve, Werribee Zoo, Kororoit Creek, Botanic gardens, Williamstown SLC, sailing, swimming, surfing, Werribee River, Point Cook, graffiti in Brooklyn, pelicans at the beach, marine and shipwright stories.

This exhibition showed just how lucky we are to live in the West and how we appreciate living where we live.

Hobsons Bay Mayor, Cr Daria Kellander spoke of her enthusiasm to encourage arts in our community and officially launched the exhibition.

2024 AGM Featuring Craig Penny

The 2024 AGM was an emotional affair with tears and stories shared about our much loved outgoing President Gaye Pereira-Jackson and Vice President Brendan Lovelock. Our wonderful Workshop Coordinator Kris Love has also stepped down from that role. We thank them all for their energy, effort and leadership during their time on the committee.

After formalities were wrapped up, members were treated to an inspiring demonstration by renowned acrylic artist, Craig Penny. Using a big canvas, big brushes, big tubs of paint and big gestures, Craig quickly rendered the base colours of his river landscape. He explained his choice of various blues for parts of the sky and river, and his choice of various brushes for blending.

We were introduced to a whole range of exciting new acrylic colours which he used deftly to create the near and far vegetation in sunlight and shadow. For nearly 2 hours we were mesmerised as we watched a beautiful impressionist landscape emerge, while enjoying Craig's energy and humour. Thanks Craig for a lively, inspiring demonstration, and for managing to keep your paint-laden shorts from falling down while you did so!

Seabrook Community Centre Panels

Six talented artists from HBAS volunteered to paint 5 large panels for the newly renovated Seabrook Community Centre. Led by the President, Gaye Pereira-Jackson, these artists used the local flora and fauna to complete these vibrant and fun panels!

Seabrook Panel Artists

Gaye PJ, Marie Long, Geraldine Phelan, Sonia Trainor, Sue Groen and Sally Bilbao.

They planned a cohesive and delightful scene that were linked together by branches of an old gum tree as well as some wattles fronds. Then they added our iconic birds, butterflies, dragonflies, bees, and included Bull Ants, spiders, frogs and even worms! This was to entice the young folk visiting the centre to count the insects and see who got the correct number!

What a wonderful collaboration of ideas, talent and fun to complete these over 4 weeks! Come visit the panels and check it out yourselves!

Landscape Painting with Lana Daubermann

Can you complete 4 paintings in 2 hours and be totally engaged in each step of the process? A definite YES from 14 enthusiastic participants who exercised their artistic muscles in a fast-paced series of learning exercises, expertly led by Lana Daubermann. It was also a night of sevens! Using our preferred mediums (some used acrylics, some oils, some pastels, some pencils), we started by representing our allocated landscape in 7 minutes, making speedy decisions about features like colour, line/brush work and focus.

Next, we were challenged to break the same composition down in to 7 shapes, with some surprising abstract landscapes emerging. Our next challenge was to undertake the same landscape in 7 brush strokes, ensuring that our brushes were sufficiently well loaded. Finally, we infused a particular mood or feeling into the same landscape, selecting colours, strokes, blending techniques or line work to fit the emotion. A lot of fun was had afterwards guessing the mood of each other’s renditions!

Our efforts were gently guided by Lana, who demonstrated each of these approaches before letting us power through our own and shared our accomplishments with lovely encouragement. The landscape painters in the group commented that these techniques will be invaluable in their plein air painting, where speed is of the essence.

Thanks Lana for a fun and thoroughly educational evening!

Lana will be running a 2 day weekend workshop for HBAS members at Woods Street Art Space on 10th and 11th August, so watch this space for more information.

Check out more of Lana’s work on her website: https://www.lanadaubermann.com/

Autumn Life Drawing with David Payne

A group of enthusiastic HBAS artists met on Thursday nights for a month to attend David's 'Autumn Life Drawing’ sessions. David, accompanied by his dog Lucie, warmly welcomed everyone to his studio in Altona. Artists of various skill levels, from beginners to seasoned professionals, shared their time and expertise generously. The atmosphere was social, educational, friendly, and incredibly relaxed.

It was wonderful to have many different models with dynamic and varied poses. This challenged and inspired us to new heights, learning from one another. This is the best Life Drawing sessions in the local area, and we eagerly anticipate more sessions in the future.

Thank you, David, for organising the ‘Autumn Life Drawing’!

Check out more of David’s work from the life drawing sessions on Insta: davidpayne_art