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 | 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 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...
by Paula Peeters | Jun 6, 2015 | Tales of science, Wildlife illustration, Writing
Australian swans are black, while most swans are white. Why should this be? When I was a child, growing up in Australia, the only swans I saw were black. At Lake Wendouree in Ballarat, or in the Botanic Gardens of Melbourne, the swans were slightly menacing in their...
by Paula Peeters | May 9, 2015 | Tales of science, Writing
I once met a man who could hypnotize toadfish. He would stand ankle-deep, on the mudflats of Bramble Bay, with his heels together like Dorothy. And the little common toadfish would swim into the ‘V’ created, and become still. Not many people like...
