Sandra Maw

Sandra was born in 1946 in Charlestown, Newcastle. In 1963, she enrolled in a Biomedical Science course and for many years pursued a successful career in medical technology. However, art was never far from her mind and much of my spare time was spent painting and attending drawing and oil painting classes.

In 1995, Sandra decided to approach my art seriously. In a couple of years, she has became proficient in watercolour, achieving increasing success in art competitions which culminated in her first major award in 1999. Successive awards quickly established her reputation as a leading watercolourist.

In 2001, Sandra took her first of many outback painting trips, initially concentrating on the picturesque Flinders Ranges and Broken Hill desert country. The outback continued to provided the inspiration for many of her paintings, however after several more excursions, she became increasingly aware of the limitations imposed by a singular devotion to watercolour as it was often not possible to achieve intensity of effect in this medium. She then began to paint in mixed media and acrylic. These gave the added dimension of texture and she found she was more able to convey the true diversities of colour, life and feeling of the outback.

During the past six years, Sandra has completed four 5-day workshops at the Mitchell Art School, Bathurst University, studying watercolour, mixed media and more recently acrylic painting.