Ancient Kakadu,Frogs,Flowers and A sketch

We live just 3hours drive from the World Heritage Listed ancient Kakadu National Park.There are some really gorgeous spots out there and we try to get out there at least once a year.We just did a quick overnight stay to go frog spotting with a reptile/frog enthusiast from down south.We stayed in Jabiru at the Crocodile Hotel...it is shaped like a crocodile with a large pool in the centre/stomach.In the day time we visited Nourlangie to have a look at some Aboriginal rock art and go on a bush walk...at Nourlangie there are really old Aboriginal rock art works done in ochre on the rock faces .

At night we went spotting to Nawalndja which is the next mountain and it has a steep inclined rock face that has numerous worn away spots were the Wet season rains have eroded the surface over a hundreds of years.As it is Wet season now it is the perfect time to frog/reptile spot.The next two photos are of a gorgeous cave gecko that has yellow blotches

The proper name for it is Oedura Gemmata

and here is a little frog in a Pandanas tree.Grant tells me his proper name is Litoria Personata

This is a larger type of frog known as the Carpenter frog as his call sounds like someone hammering in a nail.

We saw another one called Litoria Coplandi but the photo of him didn't turn out so good.We drove home again the next day.Behind our block is a Lagoon full of frogs,birds and at this time of the year probably a croc too.Grant took this lovely photo of a cute frog down there known as Litoria Bicolour

On the creative side I did another practice sketch in my A4 sketch book.I have gone over this in black ink so that I can trace it and transfer it easily to a canvas.I'm not good at drawing or painting but I do hope to keep practicing and get better.

At the bottom of the sketch I wrote "put wax print flowers on canvas here".I want it to look like she is burying her hand in flowers.I have allot of those real flower looking stamps and love using my Crayola Portfolio water soluble crayons to stamp them onto canvas and card backgrounds.I do this by rubbing the colour directly on the stamp and then I hit the coloured stamp surface with the heat gun(you can see the colour go from mat to wet looking as the heat liquefies the waxy crayon colour).Straight away I stamp onto the receiving surface repeatedly moving slightly each time forward and then back to graduate the colour and give the piece more depth.You can usually stamp up to three times before you need to apply more colour.The stamp is easily washed with warm soapy water afterward.

This card was made last night very quickly using the wax stamped flowers idea on a an acrylic painted background.I then added some dragonfly brads,painted dressing gauze,printed "Journey" ribbon,some flourish rub ons and a bit of silver gel ink to make a dragonfly trail.It took just ten minutes to make.I don't know why I thought to even try this way of colouring,heating and stamping the images but I love the effect it gives.Of course you don't have to use flowers...any stamp will do but not detailed photo stamps etc.
Before I race of(I'm in my BUSY work week...8 evening shifts in ten days...then three days off next week yeha)I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who saw my last post and sent me e-mails/comments.I do appreciate it,I do feel OK now about it and yes I am over it now.Quite sad its happened to so many others though.

hugs

Annette In Oz