Day 17 - Pink and Grey Galah

 

                                                         Acrylic on board 16cm x 16cm

                                                            Palette knife and brush

 

I'm enjoying using the 30/30 challenge to experiment with various styles. I have always loved the look of old-fashioned prints with their black outlines, and I love artwork that emulates that style. I don't think I quite achieved my aim but I had fun trying.

 

Pink and Grey Galahs are one of my favourite birds. In more recent decades they have established themselves in suburbia but their calls still channel childhood memories for me from living in the country. Below is a small excerpt from my book Grabbing the Muse by the Throat.

 

While bouncing over the rough terrain and admiring his results, we were also entertained by great numbers of pink and grey galahs wheeling around the sky as one. I had forgotten how huge the flocks became when in their natural habitat. And their distinctive, almost deafening trills en masse was another joy to behold, made all the sweeter being that it was a remembered sound from childhood.  

The first photo I ever remember taking, was as a young child on our wheat farm in a landscape not dissimilar to this one. With Mum supervising I had carefully held our box brownie – which was black – at waist level so I could look into the view finder. I aimed it towards the trees in the chook pen and clicked the button, immortalising in print forever a cohort of pink and grey galahs as they chewed the fat together in a stand of tall trees. I still have the grainy black and white photo in an album.