In early winter, 2020, new arbours were constructed, and our vigorous Albertine’s rambles were pruned, and the strong leaders redirected into more sunlight. Albertine has always bloomed around mid-November for our Daughters Birthday. This year the clusters of fragrant double flowers, started budding early in mid-October. Perhaps, blessed this year with more sunshine and more rain the large soft pink blossoms were in full bloom in late October – two weeks early. Albertine was a gift and has been with us for over 30 years. A gift that keeps on giving.
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40x40cm 2020
This painting is a poignant one. This painting is for all warriors. There are warriors in our family amongst our many friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. There are warriors, past, present emerging, and future. There are warriors who we hear about and those who we don’t.
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40x60cm 2020
Walking on our “Rainbow Trail” section of the Warburton Rail Trail, our Wattles spring to life from winter onwards. The Australian green and gold colours and blooms of the various cultivars can differ, bloom across all seasons, but never clash with each other. I painted this Wattle blooming during Winter.
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60x40cm 2020
Winter also brings forth the flowering Grevillea. This Grevillea, within our 5km lockdown zone seen on a clear winter’s morning outside our village library and community space. This painting shines a light on the amazing colours of Australian native flora.
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40x40cm 2020
From a stop along the lake wall during a winter’s walk around the Lilydale lake we were able to view an approaching storm. We see, feel and hear storms and other effects in nature such as fire, flood, drought and wilful destruction of our environment. Perhaps like the fauna, and those who have been directly affected, we need to consider the “why is it so” in the incidence of the increasing variability and ferocity of nature’s actions.
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40x60cm 2020
From storms to the quiet prelude of the morning. This painting was done in late October after the strict Victorian lockdown ended. We were able to journey more than 5km from home we visited the R J Hamer Arboretum at Olinda in the Dandenong Ranges. The R.J. Hamer Arboretum land is a small part of the original Dandenong and Woori Yallock State forest, proclaimed over 110 years ago.
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40x40cm 2020
Spring came early and with the flowering of the Kangaroo Paws came the wisteria blooms overnight falling making a new bed of compost for the next season. Nature feeding Nature. Something we can all learn from. The bright early morning spring light has cast the Wisteria blooms on the paving as fallen snow.
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40x40cm 2020
The dark early morning winter’s sky caught a flock of King Parrots feeding on the tips of the Pin Oak. Food is scarce after the fires and smoke damage so the birds are foraging where they can.
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40x60cm 2020
The north facing lakeside studio is with large deciduous trees on the south side is an ideal location to contemplate the wonders of nature. The summer northerlies bring up choppy waves as the sun lights up the treetops. Autumn has started early this year and the leaves are starting to turn. Summer azaleas and roses continue to bloom, and I suspect a cold winter ahead.
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40x40cm 2020
My birthday coincides with the blooming of our larger Orchids. My wife presented this Orchid cane full of blooms to me on my Birthday. This orchid lives under our Wisteria trees and is mostly left to its own ways. When it blooms it usually throws a number of canes full of beautiful flower. I painted this cane against a dark velvety backdrop to enhance the spirit of Spring’s renewal emerging after a dark Winter’s slumber.
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40x60cm 2020
An early Spring morning, the clouds were inky blue and thickening. The sun low on the horizon threw a cool yellow light. A storm soon arriving. After a warm winter it looked like lower-than-average temperatures were upon us. I wanted an abstracted view of the landscape, the heavily laden clouds, the sunny breaks, the shifts in the wind a glimpse of the built environment, all of which added to a sense of the drama of the approaching storm. The wonder of nature’s power.
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40x40cm 2020
Under the shadow of the mist, looking up through the tree, the early spring leaves on the pin oak were starting to thicken up. Looking up I could see a misty dampness on the new spring leaves. Like confetti, creating a ceiling of sparkling bubbles.
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40x60cm 2020
Walking down through our Powerful Own sanctuary towards our “Rainbow Trail”, so named by the chalk drawings made during our long winter lockdown by the many children on the pathways to the trail, our eyes were taken up to a flock of ducks in an old long dead tree. The tree with its top long blown out was being used as a resting spot for the ducks. Down below was a small seasonal lake that was also used by these casual visitors.
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40x60cm 2020
It's October 2020. Lockdown continues and our October birthdays approach and another milestone home alone. The roses are blooming, flowers abound from our garden and from gifts. Albertine’s renovation is looking very successful and between birthdays a magpie lands on one of Albertine’s oldest canes (30 years old a gift from friends and still going strong). It must have loved its new lease of light!
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60x40cm 2020
Our garden is a sanctuary for many different flora and fauna. They all co-exist. Mixing them in a collage is not difficult as in many places they all grow together. Descriptors include: a cacophony, a cottage garden, overgrown. The painting was made late winter with the brilliant deep blue of the Iris and the new succulent growth with the late glow of the day on the fern fronds.
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40x40cm 2020
Walking through the Olinda Creek wetlands we came across a reed protecting billabong. The lone Ibis was hiding, resting, relaxing, looking for a feed perhaps waiting for a mate. The beauty of the ordinary is always around the corner, waiting, but mostly unsighted by human eyes.
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60x40cm 2020
Remembrance Day is many things to many people. For me, my families, my: father, great uncle, grandfathers, their wives, mothers and other family members, all in different ways. We have a rose, now more than 30 years old, forming strong canes with clusters of blood-red.
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40x40cm 2020
This work was influenced by artists contemporary and not so who painted on dark velvet fabric. This painting is 1 of two. The second one is painted on a contemporary newspaper page.
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40x60cm 2020
We are blessed with the native birds that frequent our property and flit in and out of both native and exotic plants. The parrots, especially the rosellas love eating from the red/white salvia in our yard outside my studio window. I painted this rosella with an orange touch as a nod to nature’s infinite variability.
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40x60cm 2020
Birthday lockdown was a walk along the Olinda Creek trail, through the wetlands westward to the horse yard. We stopped by the farm and watched the animals in the light drizzle.
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40x60cm 2020
The two works were painted in different colourways. The first on a cheery, sunny early spring morning. The second on clear, but cold Spring morning.
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40x60cm 2020
The two works were painted in different colourways. The first on a cheery, sunny early spring morning. The second on clear, but cold Spring morning.
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40x60cm 2020
The early Spring sun was glowing into the east facing garden. Its amazing when you are watching nature, she can show here glowing beauty, just to remind us of the possibilities if we look after the land. The ferns in the front yard are all self-sown and are now 30+years old. There is nothing average about the weather and our gardens have managed through drought, rain, storms, bushfire smoke and ash, high winds, the occasional freezing morning and the even less frequent drop of snow. We do maintain them, feed and when necessary water them. And we are rewarded.
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40x40cm 2020
Another interpretation of our native birds searching for the scarce feed after the fires and smoke damage of the 2019/20 national summer bushfires. The birds, like much of our native fauna are foraging where they can. The grey early morning winter sky highlights the brilliant colours of the parrot. Perhaps, the bright shadows surrounding the parrot and green shoots are providing protection and sustenance.
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40x80cm 2020
This work recognises the workings of entropy of nature. It is a nod to the artist Tim Silver. Many of his sculptural works is related to the concept of entropy. That is all in nature is in a perpetual state of entropy: the theory that all forms and systems are in a constant state of decay or change. This idea permeates both his objects and installations, themselves captured in this process of decomposition through free falling photo-narratives.
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40x40cm 2020
We planted two Waratah around 30+ years ago. Like most, they took their time to take and develop. Today, one is around five metres tall and the other not much more than two. The tall stands over a narrow subsurface watercourse and next to a fast-growing tree fern, both competing for the eastern and northern light.
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60x40cm 2020
The blooming of our wild sparaxis is one of our strongest signifiers of a change in our climate. We have been in the same home for around 50 years. We see the wild sparaxis growing sparsely. Mostly they have been very ordinary in colour but this year we’ve had number of the brighter harlequin colours.
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