This past weekend we had the unexpected pleasure of camping with a family that have been friends of ours since before we were married. We have been through a lot together, but of late, life’s stages have meant that we haven’t seen a lot of each other. So…we jumped at the chance to spend some time together roughing it by the ocean.
On Saturday morning one of our friend’s little girls came screaming down to the beach in tears after making a trip to the primitive bathroom facilities. She said that she had seen a dragon. We didn’t think much of it…and chalked it up to the furtile imagination of a seven-year-old girl…until we went back up to the tents and came face to face with a family of lace monitors.
They are BIG lizards … as long as a medium sized dog, but with short stubby legs. She HAD seen a dragon! The family of dragons, so far as we could tell, consisted of two adults and a juvenile, and they wandered lazily past our campsite a couple of times a day in search of the sunny spots on the cliffs.
As a child my mum used to read me may Gibbs’ Snugglepot and Cuddlepie stories and for a long time I have wanted to have a go at drawing a banksia pod. Here’s what I came up with:
I had hoped for some time early this morning to draw a family of blue wrens that I observed as I wrote my morning pages, but instead I was visited by the sweet Miss Emily who scared the birds away, but who was so interested in my paints and pens that I simply couldn’t resist her charms. Here’s the drawing that we created together.
I love the excitement of little minds playing with pretty colours and seeing how paints mix and swirl together. Perhaps she was a reminder to nurture my own inner child artist.
