Beauty in Nature for Inspiration

Recently we made a visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Cranbourne. Which are all Australian native and award winning for their landscape design. 

I have been feeling uninspired lately and in a bit of a rut, and I always find it helps to just get out there and see new things to bring that inspiration back. This visit worked a treat. Just seeing the foliage and landscape shapes and colours was enough to bring back the awe I have for nature, and it sparked some inspiration and motivation up again in me. 

Continuing with the inspiration from nature theme, I completed a mini painting loosely based on this image from David Attenborough's book Amazing Rare Things. I love the leaf shapes in the original illustration which was painted c1725. This painting I did was more of a study, or "sketch painting" as I like to call them. Something I start with no pressure on myself to complete something for sale or display, and just for the enjoyment of it. I was playing around with colour and texture. I upcycled a frame for it and it is now hanging in our downstairs toilet, which has green walls that the image looks quite good against. 

I am still working on a piece that I will be giving away (!!) soon, but I hit a block with it. If you are the creative type, you will know what I mean! It needs something, but I'm not sure what. I will have to put my efforts into that very soon, sometimes if I just start to work on it the solution will come about naturally. Stay tuned for that one!