Botanical Studies, Markets and a Creative Exchange

During the past holiday weeks I decided to start working on some botanical sketches of leaves, just to start looking into the never-ending shades of greens and how to achieve them. I'm finding it very daunting yet fascinating. During the last year or so I started studying colours very thoroughly and in doing so I took out all the colours of my palette that didn't have the features I needed to achieve my goals. I ended up using a rather limited choice of favourite pigments which has been able to provide me with any colour I needed so far. I like keeping it simple to get the best and most varied mixes out of them. It worked, until I started mixing to match those greens... Any thought from the botanical artists who follow this blog will be much appreciated.

I started selling my art at the Bardon Community Market which takes place every Sunday 6am to 1pm in Baroona Road, Paddington, Brisbane. This was my very first time trying to sell at a market so my equipment still needs to be improved, my stall still looks small and rather flimsy, but there is a good choice of small-size prints, original artworks, greeting cards, bookmarks and origami. It has been a very nice and rewarding experience so far to be able to show my work to people outside the Internet and I'm very grateful to all those who stopped to take a look, ask questions, sign up for my newsletter, buy or just to have a chat about the local birds. By the way, there is a family of three Boobook Owls roosting inside the thick foliage of a big tree just in front of my stall, so, for all Brisbane residents who are following my blog, you are very welcome to come and say hi and take a look at those amazing owls. I'm planning to sell at the Bardon Market at least two Sundays a month, depending on the weather.

This is a beautiful sculpture I commissioned to the amazing sculptress/artist Harriet Knibbs, I have been following her blog for a while and I am in awe every time I take a visit. Her life-like sculptures of animals have a special effect on me as they remind me of my childhood, when I used to play and collect small toy figurines of all sorts of animals. Also, I have a soft spot for animal sculpture in general and I always thought that if I ever was to commission somebody a sculpture, that had to be Harriet. So I did, but what we ended up doing was a reciprocal creative commission, I asked her for a Common Pheasant and in turn, she accepted an original painting and asked for a Turtle Dove, which I painted for her with much pleasure. I chose the Common Pheasant because it is a bird I've been fond of for a very long time, and it is part of many good memories. I must admit that I miss not seeing it here in Australia. So there it is now, being a good totem on my desk, watching over my creative endeavours.

Turtle Dove for Harriet Knibbs