Yvette Coppersmith

Term: 3 Year: 2018

Yvette Coppersmith is a Melbourne based artist working in oil. She teaches painting and drawing and has facilitated two workshops this year for Zart Education, Painting Better Portraits. A few weeks ago Zart sat down and asked Yvette a few questions.

Zart: Describe your practice?
Yvette: I started out as a portraitist, working very traditionally in photo realism – from there I progressively experimented and broke my own stylistic boundaries and subject matter. My visual language has expanded now to include still life, abstraction, and an interplay of those elements with the figure. As my practise has evolved, my toolkit has expanded for the way I work and that comes into my teaching practice also.

Zart: What do you value about teaching?
Yvette: For me, teaching is about recognising that I was really fortunate as a student, having amazing drawing and painting teachers at high school. Giving me a strong foundation to begin my practise.
I’m interested in sharing some of those techniques, giving participants a framework and foundation to develop their skills, once you know some rules you can break them. I’m interested in shifting how people see, how they perceive objects and then developing their confidence using materials.

Zart: What will you be teaching at this year’s Nurturing Creativity Conference?
Yvette: I focus on drawing as the foundation for painting. If you have the armature in place you understand where the tones are going to go, so it makes the whole process of painting a lot easier. Then I look at colour theory and colour mixing and blocking in a painting. The session will be a condensed version of what I cover in a full day workshop, giving teachers a sense of what techniques and methods I use to communicate in paint.

Don’t miss seeing Yvette at our Nurturing Creativty Conference. Find out more at www.zartart.com.au