My painting ‘Black Swans on Lake Burley Griffen’ oil on canvas painting, found a new home and owner yesterday. It was thrilled to be featured last Friday evening in the ‘Canberra Artist Co’ online group exhibition and Christmas shopping night. So shout out to Grace Costa Canberra photographer for her initiative to create and manage the event on Instagram. My painting was purchased by a lovely Canberra public servant, called Sarah.
She was lovely and when we met she told me she loved the painting and was also interested in supporting the art work of local artists such as myself. Catching up in an office foyer in the city, we ended up having a good old chat about how the painting came about during my ‘en plein air’ project by the lake in 2019.
Having been born and bred in Canberra I often love to go outdoors and find good spots to sit and paint. On this occassion I went to the lake to paint to paint a few cute little boats and our signature black mountain and its tower in the distance, when two large black swans swam up to where I was sitting near the water, to check me out. They were probably thinking I might have some bread or food for them, as this is a favourite past-time for some Canberrans to feed the birds. They stayed with me for ages, regardless of the fact I had no nothing on me to share. They were there so long, ducking down occasionally to find food amongst the wild grasses, that I could not resist including them into my work. I’ve since learnt that while they are mostly black-feathered birds, their flight feathers are white. The larger of the pair was the Cob (male) and his mate a pen (female) with a longer and straighter bill. They are monogamous breeders, both share looking after their babies. Their wing span can be as large as 1. 1.6 and 2 metres long and amazingly this breed have the longest necks amongst all other swans, I didn’t know all this at first and now keen to see what more I can learn and possibly include in my work, of the beautiful lake and its surrounding nature. That’s another bonus for an artist I think when nature teaches you so much, when you least expect it. Right now, with all the rain and wet weather we have, I’ve been focussing on finishing some large portraits in my studio but I’m sure will soon be out and about painting nature again as this brings me so much joy, not to mention great learning and hopefully many more new happy clents, such as Sarah
So thank you Sarah for purchasing my small painting, I hope you enjoy the painting and its story, as much as I did creating it.
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