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RON MARSHALL
Ron Marshall was born in 1938 and grew up in Sydney. Because of his artistic skills he
began his signwriters apprenticeship at the age of 14 years and 10 months.
He continued in the trade for over 40 years until retiring for health reasons in 1995
when he moved permanently to Slade Point, and began thinking about doing some serious
painting.
Ron met Jennifer Jowett Ron was always experimenting to find new and better ways to
achieve the results he sought, and some of his discoveries soon became normal practice in
the trade. Ron was much respected in the sign trade for his high standard of workmanship
and artistic skills.
It wasn't long before Ron turned his attention to fine art. He associated or painted
with such well-known traditional landscape artists as Doug Sealy, Les Graham and Robert
Wilson.
He earned the nickname of "Rainmaker" because it always seemed to rain whenever he came
with them on a camping trip on which they intended to paint on site.
Ron was fascinated by the techniques of the Old Masters, such as Rubens and Rembrandt,
and studied their methods, used the same materials, and experimented with their techniques.
During this stage he produced numerous copies of these masterpieces.
Now Ron uses what he calls the "Mixed Technique", using acrylics, alkyds and oils. To
this day he is still experimenting with paint in order to get the effects wants. |
JENNIFER MARSHALL
Born Jennifer Jowett, in Murwillumbah, NSW in 1955, Jennifer grew up in the country
where she developed a deep love and appreciation for the Australian bush. However her first
love was horses, and this drove her to draw and study them from a very early age. Her love
of horses and the Australian landscape are combined in her paintings of working horses and
Australian history. Jennifer has also painted numerous portraits and flower studies.
Jennifer's formal education began in a little 1-2-teacher school at Upper Burringbar in
NSW. It was here she sold her first drawings and watercolours. She excelled in Art at
Murwillumbah High School and was among the top ten Art students in the 1973 NSW Higher
School Certificate. She completed her Dip. Ed. in General Primary Teaching at Northern
Rivers College of Advanced Education in 1976, having done Art as Main Study, and began
exhibiting and selling her acrylic paintings locally. This she continued to do in country
regions of Central NSW until 1987 when she moved to the Mackay region and exhibited there
until moving to Warwick in 2006.
Jennifer painted in acrylics until she discovered pastels in 1985, and watercolours in
1994 and recently has used alkyds and oils with her acrylics.
In 1993 she was accepted as a Master Pastellist with the Pastel Society of Australia and
as tutor of Pastel classes for the Mackay Campus of James Cook University in 1994 and
1995.
Since her marriage to Ron, Jennifer has chosen to paint under her married name Marshall,
rather than her maiden name of Jowett. |
Ron and Jennifer Marshall are a
husband and wife team who were painting similar subjects ... Australian history and landscapes ...
long before they met in December 1995 in a gallery in Mackay, Queensland. Working in partnership
they won the 1996 Mackay Airport mural competition. These Murals now hang at the Mackay Tourist
Information Centre (see at right). They married in December 2000, and lived in
Slade Point, Mackay until they moved to Warwick in southern Queensland in early 2006.
In 2001 Ron and Jennifer
together painted for the Nebo Shire Council a large painting which depicts the diversity to be
found in the Nebo Shire, and which features in the Historic Nebo Monument seen as you enter Nebo.
They were then commissioned by Nebo Shire to do a painting the same size as the first, depicting
the historic gold mining town of Mount Britton (see at left). This has also
been used for signage on the way to the old town site. Fascinated by the history and the landscape
surrounding this old gold-mining town they then embarked on "The Mount Britton Collection", a
series of paintings depicting the real-life characters and events that took place in and associated
with this place.