Birds of the Blue Mountains Guide Folded A4

An ambitious focus in the latter years of Fiona's art career....pulling together almost 50 years of Australian bird, plant and natural history study to create complex "ecosystem" bird posters.

4 regional posters completed so far: each portraying from 55 to over 100 species on a single page. The tiny portraits are rendered in intricate detail. Initially each pose is from the artist's imagination, drawing on years of experience sketching and studying birds and their habits in the field: allowing a more natural and aesthetic flow to the elaborate compositions. However, the plumage details of each species are also carefully cross-referenced from many sources to capture an accurate and suitable representation of the bird's character within the poster framework. An effort has been made to depict each species, where practicable, in the ecological niche they are most associated with. An imaginative composite of local habitats and flora has been amalgamated by the artist to facilitate this.

The originals involve a very painstaking procedure. They are laboriously and carefully hand-painted on watercolour paper but, before commencement, there is a lot of research and many many pre-drawings of each bird and also the entire composition. Finally reproduced at the same size as the original painting, each tiny pose was painted and re-painted multiple times with the finest sable-hair brushes on heavy 600gsm watercolour paper. Each poster has taken many hundreds of hours work, over months or years, often long hours into the night in the studio.

After digital scanning of the final artwork, the posters have been printed locally (Clickmedia, Penrith) on high quality, specially-coated printing paper to allow the fine details and accurate colours of the small portraits to be still enjoyed in reproduction. (Canon 12 colour pigment ink printer on archival 180gsm matt paper).