River Home

This picture of river life imagined, as a Platypus dives, is created in earth pigments, charcoal and gouache on Arches watercolour paper. 

It is inspired by a walk along the Yarrowee, which runs through Ballarat. This iconic amphibious creature has fought, with the help of concerned people, for its future in our waterways.

I have painted it slipping down through soft waters into bending weed, seeking something to subsist upon.  As I worked, I wondered about what ran down into the river to cloud its senses; about, as its years swam by, what growing things choked the river banks; about when parts of the river were rerouted or disappeared - what could it have known of the dangers looming over its beautiful world?