Hilary Mullany

Lots of things happening this year. I have more or less concluded the chldrens' book which I am illustrating...I haven't written it, so it has been a terrific challenge to fit my ideas to someone else's writing. It's not been easy as I'm not a natural team person, but I've learned a bit about how to negociate and also to be more patient. 

My art classes continue to thrive, In Torrox over the two days, Thursday and Friday every week an average of 28 people attend. Beginners and experienced artists alike, these two days represent the highlight of the week for so many people me included. The work created is formidable, new things evolving all the time.

In April I began a new class in Canillas de Albaida, which is a small mountain village about 35 minutes drive from Torrox. This class is in it's infancy and I am working hard to build it up. Together with my Torrox Classes, there are 18 different nationalities of students and models. These classes have always had the overall name of 'La Clase'.

Summerlife..the project which I began last year with my friend and colleague Simone Wiener, when we held a series of weekend events painting the nude, continued this year in the form of s day in the heat of the summer where 11 class members gathered together at my house and under the shade of my terraces made paintings which looked to their drawings done in class for inspiration. A beautiful day which I called 'Daybreak' as we started very early to avoid some of the heat.

Now in November, we are having a group exhibition at the Tourist Office on Torrox Costa. 24 People are exhibiting work done in the class. It's going to be a fantastic show, everyone is excited especially as there are some amongst us who have never exhbitied before.

We've had some wonderful models this year, so much depends on having good reliable models wh have a feeling for the work and so they become part of the group.

My own work is very much inspired by my teaching and I continue to develop and use my imagination to create new ways of looking at things. It's so important to look...to see the difference..........

Biography.

Even though for many years I never picked up a brush I always thought of myself as a painter. As a young mum I spent my time looking after my three children, doing the odd drawing or painting and selling a bit, but the word ‘peanuts’, springs to mind. Real life took over and art was just in my head.

Encouraged by my mother, as a thirteen year old, thinking I could draw, I enthusiastically took myself off to Saturday morning classes at my local art school. I soon found out the unvarnished truth. Three hours of figure drawing put me firmly in my place, at the bottom of the heap. Three years and hundreds of suspect figure drawings later, aged sixteen, I became a full time art student.

At Rochdale School of Art, full time students were expected to attend Monday to Friday from 9am ‘till 4.30pm and three evenings each week finishing at 9pm. Whole days of life drawing, figure composition, sculpture, making half life sized models in clay and then casting in plaster of Paris. We learned a craft, for me , fabric printing. Screen printing from our own designs, learning about dyes and precision. I still have my first effort done by my sixteen year old self.

After two years of playing at being an art student under the pretext of studying for ‘Inters’, I managed to fail spectacularly and only because of the efforts of my lovely Mum, was I accepted back to repeat the second year when I amazed everyone including myself by passing the Intermediate exam which opened the door to higher education.

Next came Swansea Art College where I undertook the N.D.D. taking painting at special level. I remember my first day, feeling terrified, looking up a stone staircase into the Art College, the smell of pencil sharpenings, oil paint, and clay, I knew my destiny awaited me at the top of those stairs. Coming from the damp grey days of the north west of England to Swansea, to the bright sunlight, the sea and the 60’s. I had the time of my life.

Later the N.D.D. National Diploma in Design was awarded degree status and everyone was able to convert.
As family life continued, I always was able to paint portraits as I cajoled my friends into ‘sitting’ for me in the evenings, persuaded by promised likenesses and glasses of wine until, in 1981, I went to Leeds University to do teacher training, then followed ‘The Teaching Years’. Tameside College, Oldham College,
Rochdale Metro. For nine years I was surrounded by art, the problem was very little of it was mine. I left.

I joined Saddleworth Craft Co-operative and shared an attic studio with a painter friend, Joyce Ella Parfitt. We had the tiniest gallery and sold our work. We both spent every Tuesday working with Manchester sculptor, Keith Hamlett in his Withington studio. A special time, which encouraged me to invest in my own small gallery and workshop where I was able to teach portrait painting two afternoons a week. I was becoming a painter.

In 2002 I moved to Torrox Malaga and the following year I started a drawing class on my terrace, The class grew and now in 2017 it is still thriving and takes place every Thursday and Friday in the Tourist Office. It attracts beginners and keen amateurs, every week there is a model, and serious contemporary work is created. The class is very important to me, I learn something from my students every week, and it appears that I have become a decent teacher, judging by the results.

In 2015, I was invited by a colleague to illustrate a children's book which she had written. That is now in the process of being published.

In 2008 I was fortunate to meet a fellow painter who in this small world had been at Cardiff Art College when I was at Swansea. We became founder members of Inter-5 Fine Art Group and shared a workshop on the seafront on Torrox Costa where for 8 great years we created whatever we liked, we made our own rules. My colleague died in 2016.

The Art Class continues...I develop my work and exhibit, always stretching my horizons.
I’ve served my apprenticeship and that gives me the right to call myself a painter and a teacher. That’s what I am.

1964 National Eistedffod/ Swansea.
1965 Glynn Vivian. Municipal Art Gallery, Swansea. Collective.
1974 Bury Municipal Art Gallery. Drawings from Life.
1990 Rochdale Municipal Art Gallery. 'Touchstones'. Portraits.
1995 Hopwood Hall. Rochdale College. Paintings from Life.
1996 The Leo Soloman Gallery, Rochdale College. Group Portraits.
1997 The Thompson Gallery. Saddleworth Festival. Nudes.
1997 The Saddleworth Festival. Uppermill Art Society. Nudes.
1998 The Saddleworth Festival. Saddleworth Craft Co-operative. Nudes.
1998 Northern Fine Art. Bolton. Figure Painting.
1996/7/8/9 Rochdale Municipal Art Gallery. 'Touchstones' The Peoples Art.
2001 The Graphic Centre. Covent Garden. Life Drawings.
2009 Palacio de Apero. Frigiliana. Malaga. (Municipal Gallery).
2012 Inter-5 Fine Art Workshop. Torrox. Malaga. Contemporary Figure Painting .