Damien Slevin's gritty city impressions

"The sky's that rich blue colour and incandescent lights are on everywhere so you're getting maximum illumination - the orange and yellows against the blue," he says.

"There's an energy in the pre-night."

The Waratah artist, who also teaches high school drama and history, has come to know that time of day intimately since preparing for a new solo exhibition. Watering Holes, which opened on Thursday at Newcastle Art Space, includes 20 paintings featuring a colourful array of Newcastle's drinking and dining spots. The large wood chandelier that dominates Darby Street's Goldbergs cafe is recognisable in a couple of Impressionist-inspired works.

Scenes within The Great Northern Hotel, Wickham Park Hotel, and Waratah's The Royal Hotel are also captured. Another venue is the Gallipoli Legion Club in Hamilton, where Slevin ventured out at the opposite end of the day to sketch elderly soldiers drinking schooners at 4.30am before the dawn service.

The 42-year-old is a dedicated journal-keeper and while he drew sketches at the various venues, he also documented what he saw with notes. "If you read it, it'd be boring, but for me it triggers memories of places I've been," he says. "I've got 20 years' worth; a stack of them."

Slevin, who was born and raised in Canada by his Irish father and Newcastle-born mother, is enthusiastic about the charms of the city that has been his home for the past 20 years (he lived in Sydney while completing a Bachelor of Arts degree).

"Newcastle's a great looking city," he says, "It's got so much historical architecture, and now it's improved with all these venues to eat and drink.

"The thing for me is that every time you see art featuring Newcastle, it's usually images of Nobbys, the baths, or aerial shots. But if you walk around the city, there are aesthetic aspects everywhere. There's a good vibe and energy and I'm trying to paint an aesthetic that people walk past every day and probably take for granted."

Slevin is the middle brother in a family of three artistic siblings. Older brother Greg, and younger brother Justin are also skillful at drawing, and have diversified into painting, photography, and in the case of Slevin, animation.

"We've always loved drawing," says Slevin. "My older brother and I would draw dinosaurs as kids, and then Star Wars came out so we drew scenes and characters from that. My brothers paint and draw. My younger brother is a really talented photographer and painter, but he's not doing his art right now. He's a world-ranked video game player so he spends a lot of time on that.

"My older brother is way too talented. He works in an old folks home and he's one of these super shy guys. He drew the lizard for the Bluetongue Brewery logo."

Their father, Brendan, was raised on a farm in Ireland where "to be artistic wasn't encouraged" but, adds Slevin, "he was a skilled draftsman." As children, the boys would ask him to draw pictures for them and he always complied. Slevin says their mother, Marie, is also talented but didn't have the chance to formally study or develop an artistic practice.

"My parents didn't have artistic careers, but they always encouraged us and in their own way understood our interest," he says. Slevin is pleased with his recent body of work, created over months.

"I went out a lot, sat, observed and sketched," he says.