Red-tailed Black Cockatoos

This is a strong painting for a colourful and charismatic bird. The painting is part of a body of work with the theme of "Reflections". The idea behind the painting is to bring attention to our diminishing and unique native wildlife. This is due to such factors as habitat loss and predation. Firstly I painted the canvas with a pair of large Red-tailed Black Cockatoos in flight in front of eucalyptus foliage. By cutting stencils of smaller cockatoos in flight, placing them over the top and painting a light white over, the colours of the birds and eucalyptus flowers behind comes through the body of the birds. By moving the stencils and repeating this process I created a diminishing flock of cockatoos. The realistic parrots represent a positive future because of the work being done by governments, zoos and organisations in building bird boxes and leaving old trees to provide nesting sites. The canvas is therefore painted several times to create the layering.

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Pamela Walter started her career as an educationist in the Visual Arts teaching primary, secondary and tertiary art students in a variety of fields from drawing through to painting, printmaking, textiles and crafts. This included secondment to the Education Department Art and Craft Advisory Branch advising teachers, an art specialist, being part of the teaching team at PEAC (Primary Extension and Challenge) and creating and facilitating programs catering for gifted and talented primary students including art students. She later conducted art and craft workshops for teachers including Art specialists, lectured in textiles at Carine TAFE and worked as a sessional lecturer at Curtin University. Returning to study she majored in drawing and then textiles completing a Degree in Craft and Design from Curtin University before started her own business using her designs on clothing and textile homewares, becoming a member of AGHA (Australian Gift and Homewares Association), exhibiting at their Expos and selling to outlets across Australia. Having returned to painting she has recently held an exhibition with the theme of Reflections and has developed a stationery range. Being from an education background and being passionate about Australia’s unique environment and wildlife many of paintings and images for the stationery range depict the Australian bush and its fauna, with a focus on parrots.