My Mission...
Is to inspire and teach others the joy of painting the natural world around us
A bit about me....
It starts with our idea of 'Living The Dream'. The big change we made just over 3 years ago was selling everything we had worked for the last 27 year and moved to the country to start a farm in rural Queensland, Australia. Becoming fairly self-sufficient in the process.
We had been running our own sign manufacturing business for 27 years and just became bored with doing the same thing and sick of dealing with customers I suppose. Sick of paying the tax man and not seeing any real growth. Kind of a catch 22 really, the more we made, the more bills we had.
Our kids were starting to finish high school and get jobs of their own and that gave us the thought, that once they had all left the nest, nothing was actually holding us back from doing anything we wanted. We actually started to seriously consider what life could be like if we sold both our business and home and moved to a farm.
The main driving force behind our decision was to have an early semi-retirement and actually enjoy life while we were still young and not have the pressure of making money or for that fact relying on money. The best thing about what we did was deciding we could become self-sufficient to an extent. So from spending crazy amounts on bills every year, we were able to knock those right down and reduce the stress surrounding them.
So we are now happily semi-retired living on our little farm for the past three years. Having absolutely no experience with animals other than the family pets, I am really proud of what we have achieved. We now run up to 30 head of cattle, 11 sheep, 15 chickens, 10 ducks and grow our own vegetables.
This move also opened up the opportunity to follow my passion which is Wildlife Art, so the first thing I did was join my local Art Society and started to get involved in my surrounding creative events. This then lead to being asked to teach. It had never crossed my mind before but it did get me thinking. So I created some workshops that I have been teaching in my local area which have been going great and I found that I really love to teach and share what I know to help others get creating.
This is what inspired The Creative Barn Membership, to share my love of drawing animals and teach my techniques to others around the world, not just my local area. I love how art helps you to relax and put anxiety and stress to one side while you are creating. Plus it helps to raise your self esteem and gives you a sense of accomplishment. This is what I want to share with everyone, especially during these hard times of lockdowns and uncertainty.
I want you to give yourself permission to draw and paint work that you love. As artists we always struggle with the mindset of I'm not good enough. It's a hard thing to create art from the heart and put it out there for others to see, because even if you don't ask for critique you will no doubt be told by someone what they think, either positive or negative, and even just one negative remark can crush you spirit and stop you creating, because art is so personal.
So The Creative Barn Membership is a safe space to learn and share your work with like minded people and to grow an an Artist.
The membership is only open twice a year for enrolments but you can join the waitlist so you don't miss out.
Kerri xx
