A postcard from Australia

I've just returned from an amazing month long trip to Taiwan and Australia. We were travelling around a lot, which didn't allow a great deal of time for drawing, but I had fun painting these tiny watercolour postcards. I painted this bunch whilst staying in tropical north Queensland, home to the Great Barrier Reef, and Daintree Rainforest - which at over one hundred and thirty-five million years old is the oldest in the world. Being a fan of most things green, and of things furrry (but not normally green and furry), this is a very good place to visit.

I found the forest itself utterly amazing - exceeding all my cliched expectations of what a jungle ought to be. Twisty loopy giant in your face greenness. (You can see why I am not a writer). I also found it very different to the rainforests of Madagascar, which are the only other tropical forests I have spent any length of time visiting. One very good thing about Daintree is that the national parks authority which manages the area have very helpfully provided boardwalks into certain areas, so that you can wander in as you like whilst minimising damage or disturbance. By walking quietly at dusk you can see a great deal, although we also went on a guided night walk.
In terms of what dwells within, it was also pretty darn good - while in Australia there are no primates, we found an abundance of other creatures equally exciting: crocodiles, forest dragons (a type of large lizard), bandicoot, a white tailed rat, various snakes, fruit bats, tree frogs, turtles, a striped possum, a red necked pademelon (similar to a wallaby), and many varied and stunning birds.

We also spent one far too short day snorkelling over the Great Barrier Reef. I have never seen so many species of brightly coloured fish, or indeed anything remotely like this. Coral reef is a very precious and endangered habitat these days, due to climate change and ocean acidification. I feel privileged to have seen this beautiful reef while it still survives.

Ako Project Posters - Masoala and Mantadia

Images © Janet Mary Robinson and McCrae Conservation & Education Fund (2011).

These two posters are the latest two in the Ako Project series. If you've been following my blog you will have seen my posts showing the creation of the central illustrations; now you can see the final posters (although there may still be small amendments to the text).

The posters will now digitally wing their way to Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, where they will be printed, and then distributed to primary schools and zoos all over the island.

I have the very exciting news that I am shortly winging away myself, with Johnny, firstly to Taiwan, and then to Australia, for a month. Yipppeeee! I can't wait to see lots of exciting new places, wildlife (and of course some of my 200 + relatives down under!)

Watch this space! I hope to post some drawings of platypus, or at least possums, before the month is out.

Spring Chickens

It would appear that spring may finally have sprung! This watercolour is of two Black Rock hens - I often paint them but never get tired of the beautiful shimmering colours you see in their 'black' feathers. These lucky hens live an idyllic life in the fields next to our house. Fortunately, their owner doesn't like eggs (!) so you can buy them very cheaply from an honesty box. The eggs, like those from my Mum's flock, are a deep, vivid orange in colour, due to their varied diet.

If you keep hens, you soon realise they are far from the stupid creatures of stereotype; they have as much individual character as any other creature, and can be surprisingly intelligent. Which makes the fact that in the UK, battery farming is still legal and prevalent, even more shocking.

Birch trunk sketch

This ink (Biro!) sketch is of nearby birch woods. There are lambs in all the nearby fields, so I've been going a bit further than usual on my dog walks lately. It was grey and rainy on Saturday, but the woods looked great; monochrome striped bark and boggy wet ground reflecting grey sky. It looked like a black and white photo. I didn't draw the sketch there, I took a photo on my phone and drew it back home while sitting on the sofa and drinking tea. Drawing plein air in March rain....nah

I've been looking at lots of other artist's drawings and paintings of trees and woodland recently. I really love this painting by Klimt in 1903, ' Birkenwald/Buchenwald (Birchwood/Beechwood).

The dog's life

As Johnny is away at the moment, our dog Ashby has been spending large ammounts of time on 'our' sofa, specifically, in the hollow normally filled by Johnny. Ashby has his own sofa but prefers our (identical) one. I've been drawing him whilst watching rubbish telly - which means I have to go and sit on the dog sofa.

I find it interesting how uncomfy he looks a lot of the time. Whilst I have met many spoilt dogs, even a few dogs marginally more spoilt than Ashby, I have yet to meet one that could outdo him in it's capacity to look so woebegone and uncomfortable whilst lying on a sofa.

I've also included a drawing of Connie, the cat from next door. She has ADHD and possibly some sort of bipolar disorder, rarely staying still unless her fangs are locked into your wrist. This is the only sketch I've managed to complete.

an aubergine...

I had a small panic last week because I realised I had no examples of pencil sketches to show the class I was teaching on Monday, other than drawings of lemurs, which I decided were probably not very relevant. So I ransacked the house for random objects with interesting texture and drew them whilst watching Ice Road Truckers on Channel Five. Genius programme.

I liked drawing the aubergine the best.

Happy Valentine's Day

Here is 'Blue Woman'. I painted her yesterday at a marathon life drawing class. She wasn't actually blue but I found it suited her rather well. I painted quickly in acrylic on blue cartridge paper, on a preliminary charcoal drawing.

Working on a non-white background is often very effective, for both drawing and painting. I find it makes me consider tonal values differently. You start from the middle point, and add shadows and highlights, whereas when you work on white you are starting from the lightest tones and always working backwards, as it were.