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Way back in my February 2017 blog I told you all about the intrepid Green Tree Frog I found in my letterbox and about the painting it inspired called ‘Land Acquisition Order’.  I ended the blog saying the story would continue in a couple of months. Emmm is that a typo? Did she really mean a couple of years? Whoops, how time flies. For many months now, I’ve been gently removing a number of tree frogs from my outside spa. These guys are not going anywhere in a hurry, especially since I’ve had to stop adding chemicals to the water in case I cause them harm. They are such gentle and mild beings and I love how they cling onto your hand looking all calm and collected whilst being transferred to a more suitable spot for tree frogs. Like a TREE. Anyway, this prompted me to continue the story from Land Acquisition Order and I imagined what the frog and spider might do after vacating their letter box in the town suburbs. Images of the intrepid duo flashed through my mind of them braving workmen and bulldozers as part of their journey or to finding their way to the inner city and facing the perils there. As a person who cares about wildlife you can get focused on man’s negative impact on our wildlife, but the poor buggers have their natural and imported predators to dodge as well. Hence the reason for my new painting ‘Out of the Frying Pan’. Our intrepid pair have found their way to rural Australia only to discover they have a whole new set of problems in their search for a safe abode and a happy ever after. (With special thanks to Tracey Watt and Martina for helping me out with reference images)  Do you love wildlife and critters like I do? Sign up for my NEWSLETTER, special offers and discounts. Frequency ONE a month. 15% DISCOUNT on your FIRST order
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Despite all the terrible things humans do to them, they are born to trust us..........
 Hunting+[-Habitat]=Extinction Version II It’s been almost a year now since I completed the original Hunting+[-Habitat]=Extinction painting. Apart from entering it into a competition, I haven’t done anything with it until now. As you know I’m absolutely passionate about our kangaroos and sadly I continue to be horrified at how they are treated as a native to this country. The kangaroo meat industry are making millions by killing these stunning creatures and selling meat here and overseas for human and dog consumption. The tourist industry also have to have their cut when selling various body parts and their skins to our overseas visitors and of course the farmers continue to persecute them for being on farm land. Then of course there is the massive impact expanding human development has on them.  Hunting+[-Habitat]=Extinction Version I So, of course I needed to make a statement piece and the original was just that. I can’t sell version I, or make copies available because of course it bears a coat of arms. Although many people who saw it in the exhibition didn't actually notice the kangaroo was missing out of the coat of arms. Probably because the human brain automatically fills in things it expects to see in a certain place. Not sure if this talent will work though once kangaroos are obliterated from the wild. That aside I do want to promote the uniqueness and beauty of our national emblem and so I decided to rework the background and 'tame' it down a lot. I did this by putting these unique souls back into the habitat they belong in and so now version II prints are available for sale. I do hope you like this piece and I hope you appreciate the passion and the meaning behind it. I just want to make a difference, even if that difference motivates you to research the fact and fiction behind kangaroo killing whether it be by the meat industry or culling, or you stop buying kangaroo meat for your dog. Anything…small or major it will be well worth the love I put into this particular work. 'Hunting+[-Habitat]=Extinction' features two orphaned Red Kangaroos that were in rehabilitative care. Peri is the red Red Kangaroo and Ariel is the blue Red Kangaroo. These two also feature in my self portrait ‘A Wildlife Carer's Purpose’  'Trying to Make a Difference' Samantha with Ariel and Peri Do you love wildlife and critters like I do?
Sign up for my NEWSLETTER, special offers and discounts. Frequency ONE a month. 15% DISCOUNT on your FIRST order  Just a part of the total artwork My local art society are organising an exhibition for the upcoming ANZAC day, so I thought I would like to create something as part of the exhibition. My artwork is not intended to be historically correct, my apologies. I’m an ex-pom so my historic knowledge of WW1 is primarily of the British fighting in the trenches of France. My heart belongs here in Australia and I feel massively humbled to be allowed to live in this beautiful country. My research on the ANZACs is sketchy at best, but my feelings are genuine for those that fought and have given their lives so that I have the privilege of living the wonderful life I do. When I started this piece I accessed the Australian War Memorial website, searching through hundreds of the photographs found there. One in particular caught my attention and it became the starting point of this work.
I then read that 130,000 horses were sent from Australia during WW1 and only one came back. Those that didn’t die during the war (around 13,000) were not permitted to return due to the tough stance taken by Australian quarantine officials. I began digitally painting the horse and the grave, because of the emotional impact the above photograph had on me. Then I thought of all the other animals used in the war and believed they needed to be remembered too. Dogs used for searching out the wounded on battlefields, donkeys and camels used to transport the wounded to the hospital tents. Dogs to lay telegraph wire, warn of enemy attacks, carry messages, pull tea carts, or just to provide companionship. Pigeons, I thought only carried messages, but no, they were also used to carry a camera to take aerial photographs. Horses and camels to move troops, carry packs, move heavy artillery. The list was astounding. Originally the finished work comprised only of the horse, donkey, dog and pigeon by the grave, but it looked wrong. It wasn’t telling a story.  I then incorporated a number of images to help support the painting element. These images taken during the years 1914 to 1918 are of real people. I use them proudly, with the greatest respect for those who are in these photographs. It allows me to bring them back so that they can be remembered and honoured, just like all others like them. I thought I’d finally finished after including the images, but it felt unbalanced, although I couldn’t fathom it at the time. It was only when I thought to paint a likeness of the statue designed by Alan Somerville, for the ANZAC bridge monument that I was able to bring balance back into the work. 
Do you love wildlife and critters like I do? Sign up for my new art notifications, special offers and discounts. Frequency 1-2 a month. Get 15% DISCOUNT on your FIRST order. I’m always in total awe that people out there hang my prints on the walls of their homes. In some small way I like to believe my work has made a tiny change in their life. To buy it in the first place would mean they have some emotional attachment to the piece and I just love that fact. I am emotionally attached to all my paintings and can get quite upset when the prints do not sell. So much so, I’ll just withdraw them from sale well before the set number of limited editions have sold. This is probably akin to showing friends and family one of my pieces and no one says anything or I get uninspired feedback. I just put it away in a drawer, GONE!  An example of my hide in a drawer reaction was Orphan Serenade (Orphaned Red and Grey Kangaroos). I really loved the painting as so many features hit all the right buttons for me. Technically it was far superior to everything I had done before, the subject matter comprised of some of my favourite babies and it won People’s Choice Award in my home town. Not only that, it garnered 68,000 views on Facebook with amazing comments and seemed to be well received. However, not many people wanted it hanging on their wall so…… into the drawer it went. By far the painting I love the most is The Australian (Red Kangaroo). To date, I don’t think I’ve painted anything that tops that one.  In the three years since I created it, my techniques have improved exponentially since The Australian. Painting what I feel are far superior pieces, such as Hunting + (-Habitat) = Extinction (Red Kangaroos). What do I know really? Ha!  However, none of them have the effect on my heart like The Australian. Each time I look at it my heart swells and I even smile, I always feel that he looks after me. Funny eh? He’s over 1.5m wide and at great inconvenience, I will take him with me to art markets. This isn’t because I can sell the print, it just to make me feel better and more confident. Even I think that is a bit daft, especially when it is so difficult to get him into the car. I have another painting underway and I am extremely attached to already. Technically it is far better than any painting of a kangaroo face I’ve done before and I am SO VERY EXCITED about it. Here is a taster of what is to come, I’ll share my journey with you during its creation, but for now it is just an introduction. Someone, please lock the drawers.  Proposed title: Between a Rock and a Hard Place Do you love wildlife and critters like I do?
Sign up for my new art notifications, special offers and discounts. Frequency 1-2 a month. Get 15% DISCOUNT on your FIRST order.  Orphaned red kangaroo Ove, with his special V marking. In rehabilitative care for a duration of 5 months. He had beautiful markings and an inquisitive questioning gaze. His fur was soft velvet and his feet smelt like a mixture of bracken and fresh earth. He would stare at me intently whilst drinking his bottle of milk formula, like I was the most precious and important thing in his world. He hated being kissed between his ears, but loved to groom any bits of my exposed skin. His paws would grasp my wrist and he would gently take my hand with an urgent requirement that I be groomed thoroughly. He always treated me with the respect due to a mum, but he often pretend boxed his pouch mate Arup. He was always excited to see his mum first thing in the morning, launching himself towards me in order to give a welcoming groom. He always did a little thank you greeting ‘chuff chuff’ when he saw me holding his bottle at meal times.  Ove in June 2017 He frightened me on Thursday morning when I had to rush him to the vet as I found he couldn’t jump out of his pouch. He broke my heart at 2pm that afternoon when I saw the fight go out of his eyes and he gave up. I have no words to describe how I felt many hours later when he sighed just before he died. Ove, my life was so much brighter when you were in it. I’ve lost a small candle of light and countless small reasons to smile in a day. Your pouch mate Arup is so sad and keeps calling for you wondering where you are. Australia has lost yet another Red Kangaroo. Vale dear Ove……………  Arup stands wondering where his friend could have gone...  This is just part of an Australian wildlife painting I’ve been working on now for some time, well truth be told I started it 18 months ago, but it was another of my ‘child ideas’, meaning, I had to give it space to form and grow. The whole painting will be revealed at the end of this month and will hopefully be part of the Townsville Art Society's Exhibition in the Perc Tucker Regional Art Gallery in Townsville, Queensland between 1- 24th September 2017.
It features orphaned red kangaroos Ariel and Peri whose mothers were shot by hunters. It is a painting from the depth of my heart, objecting against the legalised hunting of kangaroos in Australia. I find so many people that visit my art market stall or who speak to me in the art gallery do not know kangaroos are the victims of the largest land-based wildlife slaughter in the world. Every year the commercial kangaroo industry kills millions of kangaroos for their meat and skins which is sold to Australian and international companies and turned into pet food. For more information about the truth of kangaroo hunting please visit the Australian Society for Kangaroos website www.australiansocietyforkangaroos.com Also there is more information at www.kangaroosatrisk.net I hope you will be interested in seeing the completed work in its entirety, why not sign up for my newsletter so you don't miss the big reveal?  I had the next painting lined up in my head, it had something to do with a Cow and a Rat or maybe a bird of some kind. BUT! STOP THE BUS! My creative innards told me to do something different when I experienced a seriously intrepid frog. I'd had this Green Tree Frog living in my plastic rural postbox for around 3 weeks and I was really worried that he was getting jabbed by letters and parcels, but most of all that he'd be baked alive during our 32 Celsius days. I decided to relocate him 850 metres away to the top of the hill where I live surrounded in dense bush and near our water tanks. There are also some very pretty frog ladies there too, so I thought he would be happy. So, I WAS WRONG. This white lipped handsome fella decided he was going back to the home he'd chosen himself, it took him two whole days. You can imagine my surprise when I found him back there. How did he find his way, through dense bush and almost a kilometre? How did he know the direction to go in the first place? It set me thinking about his adventures and so I came up with this....... my story is fiction (but this does happen all the time) This painting is called 'Land Acquisition Order'and my story begins............ The frog I don't know personally only his plight...The Department of Transport and Main Roads had written to the owner of the land with the final Land Acquisition Order detail. The owner left some time ago and the rural property has been left empty. There will be a road going through, housing, shops everything. The Frog and the Spider are wondering why the human hasn't been back for so long and has left the door to swing open, without taking the letter. They are not in for a good time and will either have to adapt....or...............?? Next instalment painting in a couple of months...maybe.....if they make it.   This painting was inspired when one of my Facebook friends messaged me about a Spectacled Hare Wallaby, just by chance she sent a lovely photograph of a wallaby she was fostering called Forrest. First of all I was totally mystified as to what species she was, this is despite 11 years caring for macropods. I was enchanted by the cheeky look on this little one’s face and so I asked if it was OK for me to create a painting of her. This is the result..... She was an absolute pleasure to paint and I enjoyed every hour, the background though was... a challenge. I painted four different versions before going with my original attempt in linking her name with the background.
Forrest was being raised by foster Mum Dianne for Zoos South Australia. Deeply concerned about the decline of Yellow Footed Rock Wallabies in the wild, Zoos SA had embarked on a breeding and native wildlife reintroduction programme in 1996. The project is one of the longest running in Australia and has been a great success to date. So, well done Adelaide Zoo! Dianne and Forrest of course.
Now I’ve discovered a new perspective to consider via the ‘Intense Negotiations’ painting. Yes, I know the fox is much hated by Australians, but I’d tried to reach out to my European collectors for a change, showing these animals in their own native habitat. However, I’d pretty much given up on this piece months ago because I couldn’t feel its ‘heart’. I thought maybe it was because I wasn’t personally involved in the animals or story. Anyway, feeling guilty and in a moment of madness, I put it in my shop for pre-order, thinking I’d be motivated to finish it if someone bought it. Funny how the universe reacts…just a few days afterwards I had a pre-order. The universe eh?
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