Goanna 1 Painting

I love heath country with its stunted, often windswept, trees and shrubs, as well as its wildflowers and little birds that dart around in the thickets. The wetlands nurture local and migratory birds and beautiful sedges. The creatures along the shoreline fascinate me, especially the crabs scuttling about and the birds perching on the high points, ever watchful for food and intruders. I love the patterns on the bark of the tall trees of the woodlands, with their gnarls, twists and turns, and the animals that hide by day and come out at dusk. My 'Habitats' series is inspired by the birds, animals and plants of the wetlands, woodlands, heath and shore. In this series of watercolours, I make marks using bark, leaves, lichen, seeds and sedges to suggest the habitat of each creature, without concern for scale or realism. This painting is 'Goanna 1'. Goannas are large lizards native to Australia. They lumber around the lawns at Double Island Point north of Noosa where we have been doing revegetation work for 20 years. One day I saw this goanna being mobbed by magpies, crows and masked lapwings and it scurried up a dead tree. The birds probably had nests nearby. The next day, I saw a bundle of downy feathers on the track and knew the goanna had found a meal. This painting comes framed in natural timber. The framed size is 90.5 cm x 73.5 cm.