Catfacehorse

I picked up these shell fragments on my brief summer holiday in Apollo Bay a few months (weeks, Owen tells me it was only weeks) ago. I liked the colours and shapes of the shells, as well as the fact that they were not particularly pretty or perfectly formed on their own.  It was also good to paint something slightly less two-dimensional than feathers or leaves.   I’ll be looking around this week for something else to put on my drawing desk to  paint - a challenge when I like to paint natural things and I live (happily) in a very industrial environment. I like the complexity of these little found objects, and getting to know them well, by looking at them really, really closely. I have a weird fascination for macro photos for the same reason. My grandmother’s theory is that short sighted people like myself see things close up in minute detail while everything else is a blur, therefore we must have a natural affinity for fine detail (although that is probably how we ruined our eyesight in the first place).