Often the best judge of how passionate you are about something is what you come out with at the end of the process. For Jessica Skye Baker, there’s no question of her passion as her studio space is laden with resin artworks wall to wall and stacked on top of each other in colourful displays.
“I think year’s ago I was painting these boat scenes and poppys a lot. People kept putting in orders for them and I kept losing the passion and then I just decided I’m not painting any more of them,” she says.
“I started experimenting with resin and I started using it on traditional style impressionalist boat scenes and then I started doing the abstract and I just like it – it’s very freeing and colourful.”
With no formal training in art, Jessica has learned everything she knows from family – her father is an artist and her sister is one too who also owns Artworx. Even learning the difficult process of working with resin was something Jessica stepped into on her own.
“It depends what you do with it. It’s messy to work with but I’ve done it for so long that it’s not hard to me. If someone just picked it up and started doing it they’d probably find it tricky,” she says.
“If I look at my earlier stuff I think, ‘Oh my gosh, what was I doing?, because you can make so many mistakes with it. So I’ve probably thrown out hundreds of paintings.”
Looking at Jessica’s paintings now, seven years on from when she first started, and there’s no mistakes to be seen – not in any of the 20 odd that sit in the studio.
Often people ask Jessica just how does she make her works look the way they do, and with the luck of having a sister that owns an art supply store, no two techniques or artworks are ever the same.
“I just like to try everything and if you look at the paintings they all have different effects and looks, I try to use everything in the store – spray paint, acrylics, oils, ink everything and anything,” she says.
As for her inspiration, that’s a much simpler answer to pin down.
“Colour – I really love colour. I like seeing random colours worked together like olive green and pink, colours that you wouldn’t expect to look good but they really work in a painting. I think the water too, I really love the water and the beach. Well my favourite colour is – I don’t know if you’ve noticed – but there’s lots of blue and green down there,” she pauses as she gestures to the vivid green and blue paintings in the corner, her nails also painted a similar shade.
“I’m trying to get into other colours but I just love the watery look. I’m pretty much always in the studio or here but whenever I’m out and about, going to the beach is always nice.”
While Jessica is happy to sell all her artworks, she has even donated a few to charities, there is one that she just can’t seem to let go of.
“It’s different to anything I’ve ever done. It happened by accident and not on purpose, I didn’t know it was going to do that. Usually with my paintings I know what they’re going to do but I was trying new things and I haven’t really been able to figure out how exactly I was able to do it, so I think that’s why I like it,” she says.
If you’d like to purchase one of her artworks or see what they look like, visit her Facebook page or Instagram. Her work can also be purchased from Artworx (122 Ryrie St, Geelong).
Written by Amanda Sherring