Eastern Great Egret

With this new painting I tried to capture the brightness of this Eastern Great Egret - Ardea modesta. The bird was preening and literally spreading light from the bright white feathers. From the sketchbook: 'This is the most beautiful heron I've ever seen. Extremely long neck. Amazing light as fine plumes on the back, more graceful than any swan or crane'. Another one from the Boondall Wetlands.



What did you use?

I was asked a few times what are the tools I like to work with.. These latest sketches are from the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens, a place I haven't come back for a while..

These are the tools I like using when sketching outside: water colour suitable sketchbook, watercolors, water soluble ink pen, water brushes medium and small, water proof ink pen, fountain pen filled with water colour paint (charcoal grey).

Rainbow Bee-eaters

Looking back through last year's journal I came across a sketch and some photos of the Rainbow Bee-eater -Merops ornatus- from the Boondall Wetlands, last October. They are migrating birds that come here to breed for the summer. Probably they are now gone back north. Amazing colours and shapes, it was a pleasure to capture their beauty with watercolors.. 

Insects and a Yabby's claw

1. Freshwater Crayfish or Yabby, Cheerax destructor, claw -Crow's Nest, QLD.

2. Evening Brown Butterfly, Melanitis leda -Brisbane City.

3. Red Arrow Dragonfly, Rhodothemis liftinacki -Crow's Nest, QLD.

4. Australian Emperor Dragonfly, Hemianax papuensis -Brisbane.

5. Unidentified Moth, -my room.

Pale-headed Rosellas

Toohey Forest. To my surprise they were not as shy as usual this time. The couple stood on the same tree for a long while, giving me the chance to observe and study them thoroughly. Among the amazing variety of Australian Rosellas, the Pale-headed is the only one I've observed in Brisbane so far..



New generations and feathers

Autumn encounters: new generations, a young Kookaburra, and moulted feathers, one from the Kookaburra's tail. 

Teals and Stilts

 

This is the last painting from the Sleeping Birds series, Chestnut Teals and Black-winged Stilts, ink and watecolour on paper, 30x40cm, from a beautiful place just about a hour north of Brisbane called Bribie Island, that place teems with wildlife..

More from the Sleeping Birds series....

Female Golden-shouldered Parrot, water colour on paper, 25x20.5cm, 2011. The species is endangered, they have a very intimate relationship with termites, they make their nest inside termites mounds at the same time the young termites bugs are hatching, so the termites keep the yung parrots warm and the baby parrots provide termites with food that is their droppings.. a good example of cooperation.

 
Tawny Frogmouth, water colour on paper, 24.5x28.5, 2011.

Latest Yeronga Park Sketches

I am keeping an eye to that Scaly-breasted Lorikeets' nest, it seems they've got chicks to feed, while into the other couple's nest on the other side of the tree there doesn't seem to be a family... I've been using a new kind of art material experiment that is a fountain pen filled with watercolor paint (charcoal gray), it is giving brilliant results so far...

The Sleeping Birds Series goes on...

I am a half way to finish this collection (10 artworks so far) ... this time I'm posting the Silver Gull and the Emu. I tried to use as less colour as possible for the Silver Gull, which is easy for gulls since they're very light coloured, while I needed to use a bit more for the sleeping Emu, I had this very close and sweet contact at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane. I can see in the Emu the influence that Louis Agassiz Fuertes has had on me...