Comes a Time: Drawings by Noel Gosling
Outside my family, the person I have known the longest in my life is Noel Gosling. I met Noel in the 1970s through my sister. At the time he was living in a converted garage at his parents’ home in St Kilda East. In the late 1970s and early 80s, Noel and I travelled and worked in Europe, backpacked through Egypt and Sudan, hitchhiked to Western Australia and cycled around Tasmania. There have been times we’ve been in close contact and times when we haven’t, but we’ve always kept up.
Cycling in Tasmania in late 1978.
Much of Noel’s 20s was spent travelling the world. Whilst I was in my early years of teaching, he was elsewhere. At some stage, after he got his addiction to travel out of his system, he began working in the building industry. Enrolling in a building surveying course led to a long and rewarding career in the construction industry. Noel ran a highly successful building surveying company which operated primarily in Victoria’s Surf Coast area and extended to Geelong and as far as Melbourne. For most of this time, he’s lived on a property outside Deans Marsh, north of the Otway Ranges. More recently and close to retirement, he’s spending time on Magnetic Island, off the Queensland coast near Townsville. It’s a place he discovered in the early 1980s, and over the years, has continued to visit.
In southern Germany in mid-1979, with Noel (R) and myself at centre. The guitarist was a Queenslander we met at the Munich Octoberfest. The photograph was taken on an American army base we had had unknowingly camped on.
Noel’s mother was a clothing designer who ran her own business. His wife is an exceptionally creative sculptor and visual artist. His sister creates life drawings and is a published playwright. His daughter is an emerging visual artist of remarkable ability, and his son also a talented life drawer. But over the long period I have known Noel, I have never known him to be especially interested in art. A traveller, music lover and reader of science fiction yes, but not artistic.
In Sudan in late 1979, with Noel (L), myself (R), and Laurie, a New Zealand Traveller we met on the road and never saw again. Such is the nature of travel.
In reality, Noel has always been attracted to art, and in particular, that from the Renaissance period. What he especially enjoys in the figures depicted in so many renaissance paintings are the representation of their clothes. He finds their use of colour, shading and line to indicate the texture, folds and flow of cloth to be remarkable. And it’s true. Those renaissance artists painted clothing like no one else.
In Prahran in the early 1980s. That’s an almost new Valiant Ranger behind him.
Noel’s wife has, for years, been asking him to try drawing. She must have believed there was some talent lurking there somewhere. His excuses for not doing so were all good ones. Working full-time and then some and looking after their property never left him the time. He never learnt art at school and never had any formal art instruction, which remains true to this day. His sister tells him that he drew when he was a child, but he doesn’t remember doing so, so why would he think he could?
Noel and his mother, Gloria in October 2025. The occasion was her 100th birthday; 100 years very well lived.
And then, in September of 2025, Noel picked up a pencil and started drawing. And since then, he hasn’t stopped.
Not wanting to draw two-dimensional figures, Noel has become absorbed in drawing portraits. These are three dimensional, and he explores them using shade and tone to indicate form, ageing, experience and beauty. He finds drawing portraits both interesting and challenging in equal measure.
Noel in late 2025.
Noel often works with black and white mediums, believing these help reveal the truest representation of his subjects. He starts with the eyes; the shape of the face being determined by their placement. When they are right, the face starts to grow. He doesn’t use graph paper to map this out; it’s all done with brain and hand.
The workplace.
Noel is a big believer in drawing with ‘a light hand’. The lighter the hand, the more readily it moves across the paper, making it easier to layer the pencil, charcoal or graphite he’s using and easier to erase. He’s also working with acrylic paint and white ink.
Late 2025.
A drawing may take him three to four hours to create, and some days, he’ll do two. When he’s engrossed in one, time becomes irrelevant, the exercise developing into something of an ‘out of body’ experience. For a creative person, losing oneself in a creation is the ultimate place to be and where great things are made. This experience gives Noel an enormous amount of pleasure, starting a drawing with nothing but an idea, and watching it form.
The workplace.
Noel has recently started to do portraits of animals. These include images of birds, dogs, lions, tigers, foxes, gorillas and kangaroos. In terms of subject matter, he’s not following any formal path; he’s seeing where it takes him. He is also increasingly exploring the use of colour.
His next challenge is to learn to paint portraits in colour. “It’s the next step. I know I can do it. I just need to do more”.
Late 2025.
Noel has only been drawing since the second half of 2025. What he has achieved since then, coming from the hand of someone who, aged 70 plus, has just begun to express this creative side of his being, is remarkable. It’s been there all the time, just waiting for the right moment to emerge.
Of his art, Noel says, “You find your own way. I’m looking for my way. I don’t want to be someone else”.
Unless you’re drawing your final few breaths, it’s never too late to be creative and express oneself. It’s really about tapping into the creative side and doing something with it. Sometimes, just finding it is the biggest challenge of all. I’m really happy that Noel has found his.
