Donna Mc Kellar

Bio

Donna has always been interested in art.

From as early as she can remember she has been sketching and doodling. Donna studied at the Johannesburg School of Art, Music and Ballet after which she spent one year studying at the Fine Arts Technicon of Johannesburg.

After this she worked in various commercial art fields, from designing and silk screening, package and logo design, to colour line animation for a film company where she coordinated scripts, layout design and the animations of 48 children’s stories all done for SABC (all before the digital era we now know).

Moving on to the advertising and design world, Donna freelanced as an artist or art director for numerous advertising agencies and later, alongside her sister, they opened up an advertising and design studio in 1990. The business grew from strength to strength but Donna’s desire to paint was growing stronger and she left the business in her sister’s hands to start a new career in the fine art world of landscape painting.

Soon her paintings were being bought by keen art lovers.

Donna now lives in Kalk Bay, Cape Town. Her inspirations for painting are many.

(Light and shadows, architecture and geography, memory and emotion)

She captures moments and views that will take one down a road, or along a path that evoke feelings of peace and calmness. Her paintings have been described as realistic impressionism, capturing a clarity of light and mood, that speak volumes about the South African landscape.

Her hobbies and interests include carpentry, reading, travelling, sketching, knitting, and sewing, most of which she never finds time to do as most of her daylight hours are spent painting in her studio.

Quote: “Donna is a realist in the true sense. Her clarity of light is pure. Her depiction of our country’s landscape is a pure joy to view. She leaves you with a sense that you know the places she paints/that you’ve been there on some level. Her colour palette is always strong and sure, the focal point, a white building or farm house.

“The landscapes are pure South African.”