Penny Wheatley
In many ways my life has turned full circle. Once again music and the visual arts are working together, the one enriching the other.
— Penny

For the past couple of years, I have concentrated on painting in watercolour. I’m drawn to its transparency and delicacy, and I like to build and move around layers of translucent colour.

Just now I am engaged in a rich period of exploration with watercolour on Aquabord. This new, hard and brilliant white surface throws the light more brightly through the paint layers and increases its luminosity. The paintings can be seen more clearly because it is possible to varnish the finished painting, and it can be framed without glass.

I have also begun painting portraits in watercolours, so far concentrating mainly on children. As with animals I am drawn to the animal vitality, spontaneity and evanescence of children. Now, in watercolour, and many years later,I have resumed portraiture from a new perspective. I find watercolour so well suited to the nuance and delicacy that I want to bring to my children’s portraits

 

View ART Collections

Explore Penny’s unique vision by selecting from Watercolours, Oils & Drawings below.


Watercolour Paintings

In_Paradisum_LR.jpg

Air and Water

FireDance+V2.jpg

Dance

Glass_Vessels_12_LR.jpg

Glass Vessels

Tess+with+Winnie.jpg

Watercolor Portraits

Wild-Cats.jpg

Big Cats

Gazelles Running.jpg

Other Wildlife

Cats.jpg

Domestic Cats

Dance Video Presentation

Glass Vessels Video Presentation

AMA - Julie Gautier - Underwater Dance

Pet Portraits

Interview with the artist


 

Oil Paintings and Drawings

Wheatley+Lion_0009 (1).jpg

Big Cats
Oil on board

Horses
Oil on board & drawings

Cheetah+in+pursuit.jpg

Cheetahs
Drawings

Pop-Portraits.jpg

Pop Ic0ns
Oil on board

Classical-Portraits.jpg

Classical Portraits
Oil on board & drawings

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

For the past couple of years or so, I have been concentrating on painting in watercolour. I am drawn to its transparency and delicacy, and I like to build and move around layers of translucent colour, as in the Glass Vessel and Dance paintings. In one I evoke a meditative stillness and transparency, while the other excites with vigour, grace and musical movement. A series of pas de deux begin my first studies in Dance. The relationship of the two dancers moves and develops to a more complex and abstract pursuit of the rhythms and melodic intertwining lines of several dancers.

Apart from the quiet but luminous stillness of the Glass Vessels, I have revelled in the study of movement; of our emotional perception of movement  - speed, grace, power and energy. The pure vitality and grace of the athletes and dancers of the animal world, the Big Cats, have thrilled me for a long time, and I have expressed it in oil paintings. Presently I am finding watercolour a wonderful medium to experiment with movement and the sensation that movement provokes.

Just now I am engaged in a rich period of exploration with watercolour on Aquabord. This new, hard and brilliant white surface throws the light more brightly through the paint layers and increases its luminosity. The paintings can be seen more clearly because it is possible to varnish the finished painting, and it can be framed without glass.

I have also begun painting portraits in watercolours, so far concentrating mainly on children. As with animals I am drawn to the animal vitality, spontaneity and evanescence of children. Now, in watercolour, and many years later,I have resumed portraiture from a new perspective. I find watercolour so well suited to the nuance and delicacy that I want to bring to my children’s portraits.

Cheetah Chasing a Thomsons Gazelle h. 10.25" (26cms) w. 22" (56cms)

Cheetah Chasing a Thomsons Gazelle
h. 10.25" (26cms)
w. 22" (56cms)