"I am a quintessential abstract expressionist"

I live in the Noosa hinterlands on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland Australia.

My childhood was spent surrounded by the open plains of western New South Wales.  For the last ten years, painting and teaching workshop classes has occupied an increasing larger part of my time. 

My life has found meaning and joy using my hands as a conduit for my spirit and mind.

Painting the reality of the mind in wax and oils, is my mantra.  Nothing is purer than that. A beautiful rendering of a landscape with a horse and shed or house is considered a realistic painting, however, to me, it represents a copy of the real thing in most cases.  For the real thing, one must go to nature itself. What explodes on these panels are only available here and now. It is not a copy of anything. It is my authentic truth.

It is only towards the end of a painting that formal elements come to the forefront: colour relationships, line, shapes, texture, pattern, depth and content. It is after these formal considerations that I connect my visual vocabulary to specific features of my experience. My process involves a balance between intuitive mark making, and careful deliberation.  I try to stay present to this dialog with each work, and discover possibilities, rather than force the painting to a preconceived conclusion. Each one is a surprise. Even though my art has an abundance of visual texture, the final pieces are surprisingly smooth. All of the surface manipulation and elbow grease ends up creating a worn down, flat surface that reveals a lot of visual. Once coated with their final layers of wax my paintings take on a waxy, encaustic quality. 

I love working with wax because of its exquisite ability to unify the work from its beginning through to its end. As I work the surface, I am continually engaging in a visual conversation with myself, exploring themes about the ebb and flow of my life, keeping the beginning marks sometimes visible but obscuring them with the layers that follow. It is only towards the end of a painting I am  evaluating the balance and energy, form and content.

2021  

What an inspiration you are! the one day workshop in cold wax art was fabulous.  Every moment was excruciatingly, fabulously, informative, deliciously experimental, and total fun. You are so generous with your teaching style. What an amazing amount of talent, skill and knowledge you have... and what a refreshing teaching space you've created. And thanks for that grand morning tea...wow! I am very keen to continue doing whatever workshops I can with you. That one day dissolved my fear of working with oils and cold wax. Thanks a million. Helen W  

Fabulous workshop, best I've ever done. Learnt so much & had fun at the same time. Merridy Hope King

Holy shiznicks, I've just been christened into the world of encaustic by Cheryl McGannon in one of her 2 day workshops. She is a master of the medium and had me at the words "blow torch and melted beeswax"!!! I've a long way to go to experiment with this medium and decide how to incorporate it into my work, I am so grateful to have been introduced to it. Cheryl teaches workshops at her oasis of a studio in Doonan and is a highly sought after Qld artist. She is a flaming legend!!!! Book yourself in!  Amica Whincop Art.

2020

 Thanks so much Cheryl! I think you challenged us, but not having time to think too much was good for me and stopped me from becoming too tight and precious. 

It was more about learning the process, materials and techniques and learning about creating and expressing through an abstract work which was just what I wanted to learn. It was an immersion and I really enjoyed that. 
 My training long ago was in classical realism but in recent years I've been drawn more and more to abstract works, and that freedom to experiment was great for me.
I loved the cold wax oil combo. Have never really painted in oils. It was great trying the pure pigments and all the oil papers. The oil papers are amazing how they didn't even need taping to a board like watercolour. 
I really loved the weekend. Thank you and Dennis so much. The other gals were lovely too. 
Thanks so much again. 
Kindest regards,
Carmel (2020)

Intaglio Printmaking refers to a printing method in which the printing elements are all below the plate surface, having been cut, scratched, engraved, or etched into the plate to form ink-retaining grooves.

I offer Introductory and Intermediate Courses in different forms of Intaglio Printmaking including Etching & Photopolymer.

2 day course – 9.20am – 4.00pm

Etching as a process was developed as a quicker, looser, less labour intensive alternative to engraving.  An image could be drawn through a wax ground, and the corrosive action of acid used to etch the lines into the metal plates.

My Introduction to Etching courses allow participants to work on their own zinc/copper/aluminium plates, experiment first with hard ground and soft ground, then adding tone using aquatint techniques.

Participants will print examples of each of these processes and leave with these prints and their plates.