Dog (greyhound) in Art Spectrum ink on watercolour paper.

Will hang as screen.

photography - Melbourne

cat skull

Wojtek Kwiatkowski

I really recommend you visit the stunning horse photographs of Wojtek Kwiatowski at his home site. As he wishes to protect his photographs from reproduction, I have not reproduced them here. But they are worth the visit. My favourite is Shaman's Dance

blue cat

A cat painted very quickly in pigmented ink (Liquid Spectrum). Cats are always challenging

- I think it's the wonderful and particular symmetry of their faces.

pros and cons

Moth

ink horse

Here's a pencil drawing of a horse doing the dressage movement 'half pass'. The horse travels sideways and forwards at once. This particular drawing was inspired by Ulla Salzgeber's Olympic dressage horse 'Rusty'. I wanted to convey the power and dynamism of his movement.

metropolis

Here are James and I preparing his photos for the Metropolis exhibition (running until the 24th April at the Northcote Town Hall, VIC). I never want to see a ruler again!

too busy riding to blog!

Riding a friend's horse by the local oval. Photo by James Stratford.

Church in Italy

dragon in snow

anatomy drawing

It's really challenging to get a good sense of the anatomical structure lying under the horse's skin, especially when it comes to the complicated muscles and tendons of the fore and hind limbs. I had some great sources - Stubbs' Anatomy of the Horse and Adams' Lameness in Horses, but I found I had to get an understanding of how the structures work before I could make sense of some of the details. I'm looking forward to more study in this area.

mourning horse

Here's a contemplative horse to suit my contemplative mood. I drew this a few years ago after an elderly friend passed away - although I wasn't intending it to be sad, it just came out that way. Although, I like to think of it as a kind of sweet sadness.

Our local blue-tongue

Our local blue-tongue. Along with the skinks, he takes care of all the snails and grubs in the garden - in return we make sure not to use poison snail bait!

pastel of chestnut horse

Kangaroo sketch

I thought this was meant to be an 'equine art' blog?? Here's a kangaroo sketch, based on my early morning encounter. 

He's a proper kangaroo - big and muscular and not all that cute.

kangaroos at dawn

This photo was taken when my husband and I were housesitting in the country. I woke at dawn and went (half asleep) to the kitchen for a glass of water. A movement caught my eye outside the window. It was a whole mob of kangaroos. The young ones were play-fighting while the adults grazed. I watched for a while, took a few blurry photos, then stumbled back to bed.

My main experience with roos is trying to avoid them when driving home after riding. They're always out in force in the twilight and are both difficult to see and unpredictable. They're also a bit of a menace when in comes to people's fruit and vegie gardens. But how could you stay mad at these guys? I decided to do my first kangaroo sketch.

working in ink

There is nothing like using ink to force me to work quickly and freely, thinking in terms of light and shadow.

The ink is water-based and dries rapidly (especially on hot days). I can't erase mistakes or spend time agonising over little details. Plus I have to keep painting until the ink I've decanted is all used up (it would be terrible to let it dry up in the ink well!). I just love the deep blacks that are possible with good artists' ink.

This is the first of six, done v quickly on a hot Australian day (yes, it's summer over here!).

An unfinished pastel. Drawing is just like fiction writing - the beginning comes easily, but endings are difficult. Some artists only have unfinished paintings. I plan to finish this one. Soon ...