Mount Crawford Forest

This weekend my boyfriend and I had a motorbike ride to Mount Crawford Forest. I had about half an hour to make a small watercolor sketch. The forest is so dense, damp and dark, very unusual for South Australia!

Lovely Fairy-Wren Female

I love Fairy-Wren birds, which are very common species in South Australia. Male birds are very bright colored with all kinds of blue, and female birds come in more gentle and elegant shades of grey and blue. They are truly restless birds, pleasure to watch, but very hard to sketch. I tried many times and always came out with series of spoiled paper instead. Recently I bought a bird bath for my backyard and Fairy-Wrens are regular visitors. At least I can take a picture of them now and use it and the life models as support draw them properly.

A visit to the beach in Adelaide, Australia: Alissa Duke

 I spent the weekend in Adelaide, South Australia for a seminar . I had some free time before 9am and walked  a few blocks to the beach. I did a small sketch at the beach, before it started to rain lightly. That is not so great with watercolour pencils and paper.

So I stopped drawing and walked down onto the beach and collected some shells. It is amazing that different beaches can produce new and exciting shells. I only had  about half an hour to spare, but could have spent all morning there. I put the shells in my sunglasses case, as it as the only place I could think to store them !

I think the bit and pieces of shells and stones are more interesting as the perfect shells that I used to look for on the beach when I was little. I have been drawing these shells back home in Sydney this week and there are a few more to sketch.