by Paula Peeters | Nov 1, 2016 | Nature journaling
The forest is full of birdsong and insects are buzzing on high. The trees are flushing new growth: so much bright, young, green. It lights up the darkness of the rainforest. A white-browed scrubwren hops along the forest floor from twig to fallen twig. Close to me,...
by Paula Peeters | Jan 26, 2016 | Forest portraits, Wildlife illustration
Freshwater National Park smells burnt, but it looks lush green. I can hear the sleepy chortles of lorikeets, somewhere up in the bloodwoods. It’s late afternoon, on a hot January day. Maybe they’ve had too much sun, or too much nectar, or both. Scribbly gums rise like...
by Paula Peeters | Sep 17, 2015 | Writing
I’ve just spent more than a week living in a eucalypt woodland in central Queensland. For 8 days I saw no concrete, no bitumen. I didn’t check the internet, or watch any TV. I slept in a tent pitched on pale orange sand, with native grass tussocks all around, dried to...
by Paula Peeters | Aug 31, 2015 | Forest portraits, Wildlife illustration
Nothofagus, the southern beech, has always held a certain mystique for me. As a child I was an avid reader, and lived in an imaginary world. I was always searching for the forests of Middle Earth, Narnia and Sherwood. Stands of Nothofagus came much closer to this...
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...