Mallee Eucalyptus

This Eucalyptus is native to the south west of Western Australia.  It grows to between 0.8 and 5 metres in height. It has silver grey leaves and the red, pink or cream flowers are up to 100 mm in diameter.  This Eucalyptus flowers in early spring to summer and from late autumn to early winter….

Toadstools

Amanita Muscaria with Betula leaves…..  Sounds very fancy, but all it is is Latin for toadstools with birch leaves.  My 4th attempt at Botanical illustrations.  Also done on artists sketch paper with a combination of pencil and pencil crayon.  The two mushrooms look like they have been drawn in pencil, but in reality they are…

An attempt at botanical illustrations

I have always been interested in trying my hand at botanical illustrations.  My father was a forester and a horticulturist, my mother a florist and I come from a long line of fanatical gardeners so I guess it makes sense that this line of illustration would interest me.  Initially I wanted to do the botanical…

Fluorescent Dahlia

In my artists philosophy I write of one of my earliest childhood memories of escaping the watchful eye of my mother to pluck one of her precious dahlias from her garden. It was the garden equivalent of an orchestra and I had fallen in love with the most beautifully lush dahlia. It was a magnificent…

An artists process…….

I watched this short video clip this morning and it left me rethinking what I suspect I always knew on a subconscious level…… Phil Hansen – The art of the imperfect The idea that limitations and constraints increase creativity……  Imposing constraints, or in some cases dealing with unavoidable limitations, rather than REMOVING them, allows us…

Resin Disaster…..

Many years ago when my kids were still toddlers decoupage was very fashionable and I used to play around with endless decoupage projects which involved wrapping paper, stenciling things and hand painting trays and it was here I learned of an epoxy resin that dried like clear glass over the base of a serving tray….

A caravan of camels……

Creating an organic landscape is always a labour intensive and time consuming process. It starts with preparing the composition and sketching it onto the canvas just so I have a general idea of where to lay my various texture and gel mediums. Once this is completed the layering and drying process starts and only when…

Cattleya Orchid

This orchid is the final of the set I needed to complete. It is the same Cattleya family to the previous orchid, but just with a wonderful brilliant magenta center. The client wanted me to keep them all similar so I stayed with varieties of white orchids. The background is the same throughout the set…

Another Orchid

This is part two of what will eventually be a set of three. She wants them similar in colour and the background needs to “match”.  The first one I completed a while ago as a Christmas gift for a friend. They now want two more (with the same dimensions) to make a grouping of three…

‘MORE’ Camels

Most of the miniatures with the exception of a few and those reserved have sold before I could even frame them and today I completed the last of my large size Organic Camel landscapes which are to be supplied to MORE Cafe.  MORE has one of those wonderful policies where both Cafe and artist benefit. …

Camel extravaganza

The last while I have put aside my flower paintings for camels, camels and more camels. There is a huge demand for them and sometimes I struggle to keep up. More Cafe wants more very large canvasses which I still have to attend to. I have laid all the texturing for those already so all…

Irises

And finally after months of planning and plucking up the courage to start my iris painting and a few false starts here and there it is complete…… A painting of this size is a bit like nurturing a child to a certain point in its life… You are constantly anxious if it’s going to be…