I love being  in nature.   Listening, Watching, Smelling, Noticing. There is so much going on, so much to discover.  I love finding a place to draw or paint and trying to capture on paper what is so often huge, dynamic and majestic.  Light is constantly changing. The wind blows bits and pieces across the page, bugs and flies visit; cockatoos, kookaburras and magpies  crack open the silence with a cry that ricochets throughout the bush.  It is totally wonderful.

In this recent visit the You Yangs – a distinctive granite peaks of the You Yangs rise from the flat volcanic plains between Melbourne and Geelong (see Parks Victoria) I decided to draw large pictures cartridge paper, reasonably quickly and freely.  I sat out on the leaf strewn ground, on huge rocks, under a tree and put marks on the page.   I wanted to let nature impose itself into the drawings, so didn’t mind when a small breeze blew pools of watercolour and gravel across the page, or the rock I was sitting on pushed through into the drawing adding texture but not holes.   I enjoyed the charcoal dust scattering everywhere – even where it was not particularly needed.

Sometimes, I just need to relax about drawing.

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