TOM Tyne’s keen eye for colour remains undiminished at the age of 93.
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A former Kempsey Shire Council Art Prize winner, Tom continues to paint (mostly landscapes) prolifically.
This South West Rocks artist has painted countless scenes in and around the town, since returning from RAAF service in the Second World War.
His father Timothy owned and ran the Heritage Guest House with Tom’s mum, until hard times befell the family in the mid-1930s and they moved to Kempsey.
The family moved, but Tom returned in 1938 and, with a friend, ran the first high school bus service to Kempsey from SWR.
The onset of war and petrol rationing heralded the end of that venture and he enlisted soon after.
“I learned to paint in Noemfoor Island – the other side of New Guinea - during the War,” Tom said.
“There were American women serving there and one of them ran painting lessons.
“I learned how to mix oils etc.
“Every Friday, we used to paint postcards.”
He returned to SWR in 1947, painting one of his most memorable artworks that year.
It’s an oil painting of Trial Bay Gaol.
“I painted it from the top of Smoky Cape,” Tom recalled.
“It’s before the Norfolk Island pines grew up around it and you just don’t have that same view any more.
“In my school days we were always over at the gaol, and my father was offered all the timber from there for 40 pounds – he couldn’t afford it at the time.
“Teachers used to take us over there for history lessons.”
A dearth of jobs led Tom to move to Sydney soon after, where he worked in construction, then as a club manager, while raising a family with his wife Hazel.
The couple uprooted to SWR only about seven years ago, but tragedy struck on the very day they moved.
”It was teeming with rain, and my wife slipped and broke her back,” Tom said.
“She’s been in a nursing home ever since.”
Tom visits Hazel daily, spending three hours every afternoon with her.
He still finds time to paint – albeit not as quickly as before – as well as doing a spot of fishing and sometimes playing the piano at the nursing home.
Tom had his driving licence renewed last week, enabling him to get around town.
He likes to get a feel for his paintings by spending time at the location, then taking a photo to help him finish it off.
Tom considers himself a colour painter, and the rich hues in his work bear testament to this.
His prizewinning painting of the Gallipoli landing was a break from the norm.
“I thought I’d do something a bit different,” he said.
“It caught the judge’s eye.”
Tom continues to sell his art, and takes on the odd commission, but he is under instructions from the family not to sell the Gallipoli and Trial Bay Gaol works.
“Painting’s very relaxing,” he said.
“If I feel down, I get a paintbrush and life comes back to me.
“It gives me a lot of concentration and you’re always trying to better your work and keep improving.
“Sometimes you get a bad one, but that’s okay.”
