Artist has Fairlie good time chatting, painting
An artist is offering free advice as he paints in front of onlookers for Fairlie’s Spring Appreciation Week.
Caley J Hall lived in the town from 2003 to 2009, renovating the Kimbell garage art gallery after it burnt out. He subsidised his artwork by working part-time at the Fairlie Farmhouse Bakery, so it was apt that he has set up his easel outside the popular eatery since Tuesday.
Hall specialises in oils and Fiordland landscapes. While in Fairlie this week he has been working on an Aoraki/Mt Cook scene and plans to do a Fox Peak portrayal.
He chats to interested members of the public as he paints and is happy to offer technical tips, estimating he talked to about 200 people on Wednesday.
‘‘I really enjoy the interaction,’’ he said. People often asked him how he painted a certain subject or were interested in colours. Hall offered tips such as the fact red and yellow dropped out after a short distance while blue took longer to travel to the eye, hence mountains at a distance looked blue.
To make the colour of a New Zealand mountain, he added raw sienna, which was an earth pigment, with purple.
There were 16 techniques involved in landscape painting and he knew 15 of them, Hall said.
The artist was formerly known as DJ Biggles and he worked in the club scene for several years.
In 1999, he gained national media attention for giving then-prime minister Jenny Shipley a ‘‘cheeky’’ kiss on the cheek during a visit to the Earnslaw steamboat in Queenstown.
Hall will be in Fairlie painting from 10am each day until tomorrow before returning home to Invercargill.
Fairlie Heartland Resource and Information Centre co-ordinator Anne Thomson said Hall added a bit of ‘‘light’’ to the town.