Painting photography & pastels
JENNI MITCHELL & MERVYN HANNAN
Petschel House is open by appointment during the week and most weekends. If you would like to be sure we are here it is best to call ahead on 0417 585 102. We are very happy to take visitors through our gardens and studio if we are home. Otherwise – three special days coming up.
Petschel House will be open for three afternoons in August for guests to come and visit our Bijou Gallery and have a look around the gardens and orchards. The Studios will also be open. You may find produce to your liking, a piece of art or specialist jewellery.
New PAINTING WORKSHOPS with Jenni Mitchell will commence in MAY 2018 on Thursdays and Fridays in the Petschel House Studio 10.00am – 12.00am.
Classes are suitable for beginners and advanced and practicing artists’ looking to increase their skills.
Students will be encouraged to work with the FUNDAMENTALS OF PAINTING – TONE and COLOUR to improve their understanding and skills to enable the artist to paint from Observation and Life. With an understanding of how to ‘see’ through an artists eye you will be able to more readily paint a Classical Subject or a Contemporary Abstract. Knowledge of Tone and Colour and how to use the various materials will be covered and make the production of a fine work of art more simple.
ARTISTS’ PICNIC 15 April (click for details)
We are having an Artists’ Picnic in the gardens of our new Hamilton Property. After 15 months of relocating our house, studios and gallery to Hamilton we are finally ready to welcome artists into our new gardens and studios.
Artists picnic is an introduction to our new space and an opportunity to showcase the studios and picture framing workshops. We have a small gallery showing our work and offering quality art materials for sale. Picture Framing is up and running and all enquiries welcome.
Bring your own materials, picnic and rug to relax and enjoy the day of creating.
Bookings and RSVP to Jenni on 0417 585 102 or email – jenni@jennimitchell.com.au
This gallery contains 8 photos.
New Exhibition of recent Works on Paper by Jenni Mitchell & Mervyn Hannan. Included are pastel, watercolour, gouache and photography from outback Australia, Western District and Eltham. Continue reading
News:
The Etching Press will be available this Saturday Afternoon 21 February 2pm – 5pm for students and artists who attended the recent LinoPrint workshop. It will be available once a month for printing.
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Painting the Yarra River with Jenni Mitchell
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Two upcoming events for Eltham South Fine Art include A LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON LITERARY with SIGMUND JO
RGENSEN. Sunday 15 February 3.00 – 5.00.
For further details and bookings click here… Late Sunday Afternoon with Sigmund Jorgensen.
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Two Orchard Painting Workshop for February will be held on Sunday 8th and Tuesday 17th. More information here… 
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The Eltham South Fine Art: Gallery & Studios will officially re-open for 2015 Thursday 29th January. (The gallery will be open on other days before the 29th if we are working in the studios.) The gallery will be open regularly Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Sundays – please check first. Eltham South Fine Art is an artist-run-space and to enable us to pursue our own artistic life will not be opening every Sunday in 2015. Eltham South Fine Art is a working studio, gallery and the family home of artists Jenni Mitchell and Mervyn Hannan. The gallery space permanently exhibits the family works of painting, print, sculpture, textile, jewellery and books by the Mitchell, Hannan and Skipper family; Jenni Mitchell, Grace Mitchell, Mervyn Hannan, Joe Hannan, Sonia Skipper. and Sigmund Jorgensen. The gallery also exhibits our contemporaries and has work from the early Eltham artists for a sense of Eltham history; Alan Martin, Leslie Sinclair, Peter Glass, George Chalmers, Piers Bateman and more. As well as the studio and gallery visitors are welcome to wander through the orchard garden which was originally established by Arthur and Grace Mitchell in 1948. Textile and jewellery from Afghanistan, Mongolia, Nepal, Timor and Turkey. We also offer custom Picture Framing and have been framing as Studio Framing since 1988.
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Painting classes are held with Jenni Mitchell and Mervyn Hannan and will be commencing for 2015 from Thursday 29th January.
Thursday 10.00am – 12.30
Thursday 4.30am – 6.30
Friday 10.00am – 12.30
Saturday 10.00 – 12.00
Saturday 2.30 – 4.30
Private sessions by arrangement.
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Painting and Drawing Workshops are organised throughout the year and held at the Studio, The Orchard Garden, The Yarra River and other Landscape locations. These will be posted at they are organised. There are currently places available in the Orchard Garden Workshops for February.
The Lino Print workshop for January is full at this time.
November is looking good at the Eltham South Fine Art: Studios & Gallery.
The Orchard Garden is in full bloom and producing an array of Spring Flowers and vegetables.
Several Garden Workshop dates have been organised for painting in the Orchard through to February 2015 and during the Summer break in January a two day linocut printmaking workshop will be held in the gallery. Bookings are now being taken for these workshops.
The Orchard Garden in Spring Bloom.
Jenni Mitchell and Mervyn Hannan’s private studios will be open for the next two weekends as part of the Nillumbik Shire Open Studio program. Come into the gallery studio and through the orchard to the visit their private working studios.
The current exhibition in the gallery is a selection of works by Jenni Mitchell and Mervyn Hannan.
New into the gallery are some beautiful silver and gemstone jewellery made by artists and craftsmen from ethnic Hill-tribe communities and work by several Nepalese women’s communities. We also have new work from Mongolia, Timor, Nepal and India.
‘Woman with Stone’ Jenni Mitchell Linocut Print.
New Painting Workshops
A series of four new workshops have been planned to work with Jenni Mitchell and Mervyn Hannan both in the Artists Orchard Garden at the gallery and in both Wingrove Park Eltham and along the Yarra River in Warrandyte.
Click here for Workshop details…
Wingrove Park Details & Bookings
All Workshop Dates Spring/Summer
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Students from the Studios
DV News Oct 1 2014
September News
Jenni Mitchell’s Painting Students Exhibition.
The first exhibition by 27 of Jenni Mitchell’s Eltham Studios painting students will open Sunday 28 September at Eltham South Fine Art: Gallery & Studios.
This is the first student show at the gallery since moving the teaching studio from Montsalvat to the studio and home of the late pastry cook and sculptor GRACE MITCELL. The last exhibition of Jenni’s students was held in the Long Gallery at Montsalvat several years ago.
I am excited at the breadth of the work in this show. Most of the students are from the Eltham and Nillumbik area and range in ages from 11 – 76. Some of my students have been working in my studios for eight years and others just a few months. The diversity of the work also ranges in styles and materials from works on canvas, paper, oil paint, pastel, pencil and water based paints.
The Exhibition subjects include simple black and white studio studies to complex and intricate still life paintings, the orchard garden at the studio and paintings from recent plein air workshops in Wingrove Park and the Yarra River.
The quality of the work in show is excellent due partly to the disciplined basis of the tonal painting technique encouraged in the studio.
My philosophy is to encourage them to spend the time in developing good painting skills through a formal understanding of tone using first black and white to understanding how to ‘see’ the subject objectively. By using these classical early techniques the artist students are able to develop their own methods in which they may ‘express themselves’ through any medium and will have knowledge of how make their art with conviction rather than by using the hit and miss approach.
Many students will be hanging their work in a gallery for the first time while others have been exhibiting regularly. The idea of the show came from the students who wanted to experience the complete process learning and making art through to the exhibition.
Also on exhibition are works by Mervyn Hannan’s pastel students. Mervyn has been taking classes also this year. Students are able to take classes with both Jenni and Mervyn.
This is an opportunity to show support for the thriving artistic community in our area as well an opportunity to make a purchase from new and emerging artists who may become our Finest Artists of the Future. Some works are for sale and are reasonably priced.
The Exhibition will be opened by Councillor Helen Coleman 2.oopm Sunday 28 September and run until 12 October – Wednesday’s to Sunday 10.00am – 5.30pm.
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Further Background –
Eltham South Fine Art: Studios & Gallery grew out of the Mitchell family property in Mt. Pleasant Road. My parents, Grace and Arthur Mitchell purchased the property in 1948 – an old rambling weatherboard cottage stood at the top of the block. When my father became ill Grace built a small tearoom and pastry shop, as a way of earning an income to support Arthur and her young child (Jenni) then. Together they built the large orchard garden that survives today. (Mervyn and I maintain the garden as well as run the gallery and teaching studio to help preserve this little piece of Eltham history).
After Grace retired from the shop, age 67 she got a driving license and completed a fine art degree at RMIT. The ‘tearooms’ then became her home and sculpture studios. The old cottage is now a mudbrick house and Jenni’s painting studio. When Grace passed in 2011 at nearly 95yrs Mervyn and I decided to turn her home and studio into what is now ELTHAM SOUTH FINE ART: Gallery & Studios.
Prior to this I rented the Studio at Montsalvat by the pool as my teaching studio. Seemed wasteful to continue to pay rent to Montsalvat when I was also paying rates for Grace’s house; and we didn’t want to sell to a developer; which was suggested.
Grace would be delighted to see her home being used as a gallery and studio today. She loved to teach too and used to teach pottery and bee keeping at the Eltham Living and Learning Centre.
We have had several shows at the gallery in the last couple of years including an important RETRO ELTHAM SHOW in which we exhibition 61 artists who were working in the Shire during our youth (1960s – 1980s). Mervyn and I both want to continue to show the art and history of local region. Both Eltham born and with strong ties to Montsalvat from an early age we have a sound knowledge of the arts history in region, and how quickly it can disappear.
Jenni Mitchell
We are very pleased to invite you to a special event in our LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON Series. A Performance with DANIEL KAHANS. SUNDAY 15 JUNE @ 3.30. Booking Advised
.Cost $9.50 includes High Tea and refreshments.
For More details of our forthcoming Late Sunday Afternoon click here.
Petschel House: Gallery | studios |Gardens 
