Kiwiana, Silver Fern & Tui Bird

New Zealand has many native flora and fauna.
We are blessed with some of the most stunning native bush in the world.
We live between native bush and the sea, so I get to go bush walking when ever I want to.
I could load up 100 pics 🙂 of my walks if i wanted to, but i wont , (collective sigh of relief lol)…
here are 3 to show you where i get my inspiration from………

Mamaku 2

Mamaku 1

Mamaku 3

….to then paint things like this:
Silver Fern 1000 with sig

©Reina Cottier Art.  (Sold)

and, right outside my bedroom window in spring, are gorgous wee chaps like this Tui bird,
(another native of New Zealand),
talking away, clicking and singing with what sounds alot like a bell bird at times.
The stunning ‘metallic’ colours on this bird are mesmerising to me, these pics dont really show the deep gun metal grey, emerald greens and deep turquoises…the subtle nuances of them are what fascinate me, not a blaring vibrant “look at me” type thing, but more, an elegance, (esp with that ‘cloak’ of feathers around its nape), and a slight arrogance in a way. They are quite naturally tame, you can get within a metre or so when they are feeding and they dont mind at all.

Tui Collage

so here are 2 of my Tui paintings:

Tui 1 1000 with sig

©Reina Cottier Art (sold)

Tui 2 1000 with sig

©Reina Cottier Art (sold)

hope you enjoyed a taste of Kiwiana in this post.

As always, im rampantly active on FB if you want to chat there 🙂
(my FB link to the right of this post)

or email me: reinacottier@gmail.com

xxx

~Magical moon~ work in progress……


Acrylic on Canvas….(with a touch of gesso)…

Have wanted to paint a BIG FAT FULL MOON for absolutely AAAAAGES! Inspiration for this comes from where we have gone for holidays since i was 13 (and thats a looooong time, many many moons and then some lol!), a beautiful seaside town in New Zealand, on the Coromandel Peninsula called Tairua. *sigh* soooo gorgeous, layered mountains full of crystals on one side and the deep turquoise ocean on the other. The full moon at night there is sublime, because there are no city lights to dull her glow, her shine. AND the weather is often clear, so combine the 2 and it really is more than a sight to behold. MAGICAL!

I painted the background jet black to start, then used a mix of gesso and paint (mainly paint) to paint my moon. I used a brush and a sponge, (dabbing the sponge with tones of whites & yellows, and a dab of orange), I wanted that slightly stippled effect to give that crater surface from a million miles away look…keeping an upward swipe of flat, straight up the middle of the moon, which is where i am going to have ?????? undecided actually, most probably a plant/fern/native NZ flora of type of thing.-abstract of course 🙂

Warning: this could change at any given time, I am more than likely to toss it aside for a month and look at it every day with disdain, till I am thoroughly and utterly passionate (not just “yeh that’ll do”) about what is to have the foreground ‘prime’ position. It has to be interesting enough to be eye catching, but not SO much so that it steals the limelight from our leading lady, Luna.I will have some other detail somewhere, but it will be incidental i think, not a ‘lead role, hardly supporting either, ..more ‘cast as an extra’.

so… watch this space….. could happen tomorrow, maybe even tonight if the mood strike me, yes, i have been known to leap out of bed at 11.30pm, grab wine and bikkies, and head out to the studio to ‘do something very important’ just so i can sleep… when there is an idea/creativity bursting to be expressed there really is NO holding it back, it has a life of its own and i become the mere tool of getting it onto the canvas. Thrilling!!!!!!!!!


Flow of Life

Acrylic on Canvas- © Reina Cottier and Reina Cottier NZ Artist, 2011.

A total JOY to paint this! It literally flowed out from within, was done in lightning speed, something that easy, that flowing that enjoyable is not a long laborious process. 🙂 Its thrilling when a piece comes together like this, literally no ‘thought’ what so ever,..all just heart/intuition/hands and paintbrush.

Once again, flowing beautiful shapes and colour, blend of colour is my inspiration.

Was sold before it was finished.