Artist Danielle Hatherley takes us on a journey to the beginnings of her
creative life, and tells how she has found new inspiration in revisiting
familiar scenes.
I often have people ask me, “where do you
get the ideas for your paintings?” My first thought
normally is, “boy, where do I start?” because in many
ways, every painting has been a part of a long,
winding and interconnected road. If I look back to the
start of that road, I can clearly see that my first true
spark of inspiration for painting came about on the
first day that I painted outdoors, in the landscape.
Prior to that I was a flakey art school student who was
far from inspired in life drawing class.
So I had found my first love – the landscape!
From there, after a few years of committed plein air
painting, it became more and more evident that
backlit scenes were of most interest to me. I loved late
afternoon scenes of Balmoral Beach or Sydney
Harbour that were flooded with light. As many artists
do, I was taking reference photos often and I started