An Artistic Sense – Kate Broadfoot
Kate Broadfoot is very familiar with the shifting moods of the coastline by her home in the Illawarra, south of Sydney on Dharawal land. The plein air artist is surrounded by a rolling escarpment that flows onto pine tree-dotted beaches and dramatic cliff faces, a dynamic natural environment that forms the dominant subject in her pieces. She says she revisits favourite vantage points but never tires of the view, reinterpreting the ever-changing setting with fresh brushstrokes and a light touch.
Kate has four grown children and lives with her husband in a layered character home that dates back to the 1880s. A corner in the garage suffices as the artist’s studio, which she shares with her husband who makes timber art frames, but she is quick to point out that the majority of her painting happens in her little silver car. As witnessed in the visual essay below, the car is truly an art studio on wheels, complete with a lingering oil paint aroma and the painterly splatter evidence of a very productive creative.
Read on to find out more about Kate Broadfoot and her inspiring art practice.
Where do you live and create?
I live in Bulli, a northern suburb in the Illawarra region of NSW. I paint almost entirely in my local region though I do love our trips out west when I can explore painting an entirely different type of landscape. It’s hard to get my husband away from the coast, so I make the most of the spectacular local views.
Bulli is tucked in under the magnificent Illawarra escarpment and hemmed by glorious beaches.
Were you artistic as a child?
A flamboyant art teacher who would load us into her van and take us out painting plein air all over the Wollongong region, started me on a life long journey.
What did your art journey look like?
After completing art teacher-training in Newcastle in the ’70s, I taught for eight years in Wollongong high schools and then opened a studio teaching classes to adults and kids (Bonnaccord Arts and Crafts) in Bulli. This was a great success and lasted 18 years. In partnership with my husband Peter we published painting instruction books and had a huge art supply business, as well as a variety of teachers and classes running seven days a week and several nights. It was an intense time as we also had four children (who we pretty much left to their own devices...they survived) finally closing the business in 2005.
From that point I was free to really develop and immerse myself in what I had always wanted to do, plein air painting in oils and watercolour.
How does living where you do inspire your work?
From our headlands, I particularly love to capture the coastline stretching north in every mood. On a clear day, from Waniora Headland I can see all the way to the northern tip of the Royal National Park. Other days I love to catch the misty effects as rain clouds travel down the coast.
I paint in my car, so painting in the rain is a particular delight. I feel enclosed in a very special world when I’m out painting in my car, watching the world go by. Usually I have spotted a view I want to try to “grab” and then have to figure out where I can park in a location with the best aspect. Often I’m distracted when I’m driving as I frame the scene ahead in my mind with telegraph poles, palm trees or profiles of the mountain all demanding my attention, so many great compositions still waiting to be explored.
I paint in my car, so painting in the rain is a particular delight. I feel enclosed in a very special world when I’m out painting in my car, watching the world go by.
Can you walk us through your daily creative practice?
My brain works best in the early morning so a perfect start to the day is to be dressed, make a coffee and load the paints and boards into the car. Once I’m parked in my spot, I drink the coffee and just look at the scene to figure out what’s there. That is an incredible moment of enlightenment as aspects of the scene emerge. Two or three paintings later I’m ready to come home and get through the usual household chores.
Your medium of choice?
My paint brand of choice is Windsor and Newton Artisan water-mixable oils. The development of this type of oil paint is miraculous. I love this paint. This is oil paint that cleans up with soap and water. It mixes with water for washes, there are no dangerous overpowering smells and it is splattered all over the inside of my car. It takes a couple of weeks for a painting to dry however I think it is faster than traditional oils. The back of my car has a paint drying shelf, as the heat in the car speeds up the drying time.
What elements of your surrounding landscape do you set out to capture? How do you employ colour, texture and brushstrokes to express these elements?
I love to repeat a scene over and over in different light, weather and viewpoints just to explore what it’s got to offer. Variations in tones and how objects become significant or disappear in the landscape is a fascinating study. I never anticipate how a painting will look when its finished, the view and the painting direct me.
I don’t ever draw a scene, working instead with large flat brushes roughing in the scene in wash areas, and then progressing to smaller brushes for definition and detail. Aspects of the landscape (trees, houses, cars) can be picked up and used in another location in the scene to manipulate the composition to satisfy my eye.
How do you decide when a painting is finished?
I am rarely satisfied with what I paint as I am always trying to simplify the scene with fresh, bold brushstrokes however my desire to touch up always overrules in the end, and usually I fiddle a bit too much. So I keep at it, loving every minute of being absorbed and totally focused on that view and that composition on the board.
If I can finish a painting on location and discover, on reviewing it back home (on an easel), it needs no touch ups, that is a huge achievement. The most satisfying feeling in connection with my work is the “one go” painting. If a painting doesn’t seem to work, I will take a photo and the clearer definition of tones, directions and errors in the photo will jump out to me, so then I can alter and complete the painting. Sometimes I will attach (the hashtag) #allaprima to a painting on instagram because it is one with no touchups, it has been done in the first go, a great achievement.
Southern Wild Co celebrates the scent stories of the Australian landscape – what fragrances do you notice when you are painting and walking in your beach-side neighbourhood?
A friend said to me the other day, “I love the smell in your car”. It’s the faint smell of oil paint, wood, soap all mixed together. Then there’s the eucalyptus smell of the gums on hot days when I’m painting in the bush. And the smell of rain...heaven. I’m sure the smell of salt spray and many others waft past me however the trees and rain are dominant.
I share my studio space with my husband’s frame-making workshop. The smell of freshly cut timber wafts through on occasions … shaved wood is a beautiful smell. One of the dominant smells however, is rising from his shelf of dead things. He collects mummified animals and these are on a shelf in my space. To overcome this awful smell I actually light a Southern Wild Co candle.
The gentle, not overpowering smell from my Sirens candle is just enough to block out the dead things. I’m not great with perfumes, so the soft aroma of the candle is a perfect balance in my studio space.
Find Kate on Instagram here.
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