by Paula Peeters | Aug 26, 2015 | Forest portraits, Wildlife illustration
I explored my first rainforests when I was 14 years old and the experience probably changed my life. On a cold autumn morning at Binna Burra, I awaited the dawn bird walk, an enormous pair of very unsophisticated binoculars slung around my neck. Dingoes were howling...
by Paula Peeters | Aug 20, 2015 | Forest portraits, Wildlife illustration
Drive from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast, between the Glasshouse Mountains and Bribie Island, and you will pass through vast areas of exotic pine plantations. But it wasn’t always this way. Once there were miles of scribbly gum woodlands with a diverse heathy...
by Paula Peeters | Aug 11, 2015 | Forest portraits, Wildlife illustration
The most widespread and abundant forest type in Australia is probably dry sclerophyll forest – the tallest trees are eucalypts and their relatives (Corymbia, Angophora, Lophostemon), and below them are sparse shrubs, heath and/or grasses and herbs. This...
by Paula Peeters | Jul 26, 2015 | Forest portraits, Tales of science, Wildlife illustration
Many beautiful beasties live in wet sclerophyll forest, including those that dwell or nest in the hollows of venerable old trees. Gliding possums that eat leaves, blossoms or trees sap; owls, tree-creepers and parrots; bats, snakes and antechinuses¹. As I started...
by Paula Peeters | Jul 15, 2015 | Forest portraits, Wildlife illustration, Writing
When it comes to doing art I’m largely self taught, so I always hesitate to call myself an artist. But I do like a challenge. Trying to draw forest portraits would require me to brush up on everything I had ever learnt about colour and tone and whatever else goes into...
by Paula Peeters | Jul 8, 2015 | Forest portraits, Tales of science, Wildlife illustration, Writing
Look for depictions of forests in art and you won’t find many. Sure, there are plenty of landscapes with trees. But look closer and you’ll notice there are only a few trees, probably to one side of the picture, and the rest is open country. Or it is a parkland, some...
