Christine Eyres is a writer and artist living in Fremantle, Western Australia. Born in Scotland, Christine grew up in the south-west coastal town of Albany. She has been painting ever since her mother wrapped cotton wool around a bush stick and let her daub with cochineal. At the age of five or six, she crept up behind horses to steal hair from their tails to make paint brushes. However art school wasn’t an option for a kid from the bush, and it wasn’t until she left teaching to start a family that she realised the need to paint was still strong.
Christine completed a fine arts degree at Curtin University in 1984. Unhappy with her artwork, she returned to university and completed a Graduate Diploma in English thinking she needed to know more about the Australian culture. Ironically it is only after that study, that she came to recognize that her Scottish heritage is an important part of who she is, and has now given herself permission to examine it through her art and writing.
After raising her family on a small alpaca farm in the hills outside Perth, Christine decided to do art full-time and moved to Cairns. Here she attended James Cook University to complete a Graduate Diploma in Fine Art. She worked from her studio at Holloways Beach where the lifestyle of the casual coastal community fed into her art.
Christine has always had a passionate interest in colour and was fortunate enough to meet Michael Wilcox at university. She worked for Michael for several years and still loves to pass on the principles outlined in his book “Blue and Yellow don’t make Green”, as they were very important to her development as an artist. Christine teaches life drawing, painting and colour theory to various community groups.
Now back in Western Australia, Christine has settled in Fremantle and is loving the community of the old port city. With her family, scattered from one side of the globe to the other, writing has become her main obsession these days. Not only is it immensely satisfying, it is extremely portable. Christine is an active member and treasurer of the fellowship of Western Australian Writers (FAWWA)