Kay Drew on painting stormy seas and weathering her own

AFTER a 15-year hiatus, Barwon Heads artist Kay Drew said returning to painting was easy.

“I didn’t find it challenging, I was just thinking one day, why aren’t I painting? It was just like a switch.”

Drew had returned from six months in the Himalayas when she decided to return to oil painting.

15 years earlier, when she became the sole financial provider for her family, she began working in the aged care and disability sector to support them.

“I still incorporated my art into that work wherever I could,” she said, “and then last year I just decided it was time to go back to pursuing art full time.”

“My son had built me a little studio… and I thought, it’s time to actually put it to use.”

The return felt natural for Drew, who has enjoyed art ever since she was a child.

“I used to draw all the time,” she said. “I had six brothers, so I spent a lot of time doing solitary things.”

At eight, Drew was gifted her first set of paints, which ignited a lifelong passion.

“I had not experienced paints… and I just fell in love.”

 

However, she did not realise she wanted to pursue art until many years later, when she was on Dunk Island, partway through a degree in accounting.

“I was sitting on the beach… and I thought, I don’t want to be an accountant. I would be sitting in an office for the rest of my life,” she said.

“I was already painting at that stage and I made the decision to practice and get good enough so that I could paint all the time because that’s what made me happier than anything. It was a very definite moment.”

After taking an oil painting class at Teachers College, Drew discovered a particular fondness for the medium.

She said she distinctly remembers the smell of the paints from the first time she worked with them.

For many years, Drew painted landscapes of north-east Victoria, while living on a chestnut farm.

When a gallery in Sorrento that was buying her work requested she paint the ocean, she began to discover how much she enjoyed painting the new scenery.

 

“We still spent a lot of time at the beach, even though we lived up there… and I just really loved it.”

She even sold paintings to a gallery in Osaka, Japan for almost a decade after her phone number was found on the back of a four-inch painting in the Sorrento gallery.

26 years ago, Drew made the sea-change to the peninsula, and after spending many summers there whilst growing up, she was glad to return.

After the move, she said painting ocean scenes “was a no brainer”.

“Because now I was living beside the ocean,” she said. “I’d always loved it and I found that I had an affinity with it. It came to me quite easily,” she said.

Kay’s enjoyment of painting the ocean is clear in her studio, where every wall hangs several ocean scenes, many featuring recognisable locations across the Bellarine.

One of her favourite locations to find inspiration is 13th Beach, and she enjoys the rough waters, and watching the surfers.

If she ever finds herself creatively blocked, Drew will walk along one of the beaches which surround her to rekindle her inspiration.

 

“If I’m blocked, I’ll go for a walk and usually that’s all I need to do. I’ll go for a walk on the beach and I’ll see something that I want to paint.”

Kay is particularly drawn to stormy skies and the way the ocean looks during a storm, and will often find scenes to photograph when a storm is coming in for later reference.

Now, a year into her return to painting, Drew spends as much time in the studio as she can.

“Even on my days off,” she said, “if I have time in the studio, it’s what I prefer to do over anything else.”

She has also found a lot of solace in meditation, working with two teachers in the Himalayas. She said this has influenced the space she likes to create when she is painting.

“Over the past 27 years, I have had a very strong meditation practice and that has instilled in me a love for silence,” she said. “I like to create a very peaceful, still environment where I paint.”

When considering a new painting, Drew said she has an “instant response” to ideas.

“It’s an emotional connection,” she said. “I don’t have an emotional response, I can’t put that into the painting, and the viewer isn’t going to have that either.”

“I think that’s what people often say when they look at my work, that they feel an emotional response when they look at it.”

This response has led to many people purchasing Drew’s artworks. She said it is “amazing” to know her pieces are being enjoyed in other people’s houses.

“I’ve met some really lovely people who have fallen in love with my work and have commissioned some really large pieces for their home and I feel very honoured by that.”

To new artists, Drew encouraged dedication and lots of practice.

“People think you’re born with a gift,” she said, “I don’t subscribe to that. It’s all about how many hours you put in and if you really want to learn, then it’s something that can be learnt and you just have to practice.”

 

This is also what she loves most about creating art.

“I paint because I really love the process of creating something and I’m always trying to improve, constantly trying to get better and better and better. And I don’t think there’s ever any end to that. So, it’s just something that’s continually giving me joy and challenge.”

Recently, Drew participated in the Bellarine Arts Trail, and with her studio overflowing, she filled her whole house with paintings.

She also has a coming exhibition in the Untether Gallery in Geelong, alongside other local artists, for Shared Solos, opening on February 26.

For more information, head to kaypearce.com.au