It has been so nice to see the sun shining in Adelaide over the last few days and the blossoms are finally bursting open to announce the start of Spring. It always feels like a hopeful time of year as the days get longer and brighter. It is also a great time to feel inspired to make new work as it becomes easier to go outside and take walks amongst the flowering natives. A recent drive to the Adelaide Hills was a visual feast of yellow wattle on the roadside with rolling hills beyond. This led me to dreaming up these three new paintings which also feature little groups of native birds

.In 2020, I spent a lot of time in our backyard watching a little family of magpie-larks diligently build their nest and care for their chick when it eventually arrived. One of the silver linings that many of us recognized at this time, was the opportunity to slow down and spend more time with our immediate families observing and appreciating the small things in life. In many ways this little bird family was not so different from us - going out to find food and returning home to care for our children.

The last few years have magnified the importance of our health and as a family we have been making more effort to get out in the mornings to our local oval to use the outdoor gym equipment or jog a lap or two of the circumference. I always enjoy watching the birds in the gum trees during this time as they flitter around from branch to branch and busy their beaks in the gum blossoms. I was thinking to call one of these paintings ‘morning exercise’ to remind me of this time but in the end I went with ‘Sunrise’ as this title reminded me of some of the early mornings we had spent outside sipping green tea and watching the birds flying about.

Even now, I try to keep my focus on the small moments of joy - the time spent with loved ones, a colourful sunrise or sunset, the change in seasons - things we sometimes miss when life is so busy.. Life really is the journey and not the destination so we have to remember to cherish each snapshot as we go along.

Little Bird Paintings