A Mantua from New Zealand

A Mantua from New Zealand

 

I recently made some more photographs for my Mantle series, this one I think of as being a New Zealand mantua as it shows a tropical  palm leaf on the dress.

 

 

 

 

This one shows specifically the  Pacific Ocean.

 

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blogspot

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 

 



Rare White Heron in Thames New Zealand

The Kotuku or White Heron

 

 

We saw this rare and beautiful bird last Tuesday as we were passing through Thames on the Coromandel Coast in the North Island.  It is a large bird and it floated in to land on an old fishing vessel on the intertidal mud flats. .

 

 

The mud flats provide a habitat for mangroves which are prolific around the Hauraki Gulf.

There were not many other birds around, some pied shags and a few ducks so it was a great surprise

to see a kotuku.  They only breed on the West coast of the South Island so it had travelled some

distance.

 

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blog

 

 

All images copy right Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 



A Garden Painting from New Zealand

A Friend's Garden

 

 

This painting was made from the view in a friend's garden which backs onto an area of New

Zealand bush.  On the left there are Black Mamaku tree ferns which can grow to

twenty metres, they have a distinctive curled frond before they unfold into their large umbrella branches.  It is the tallest of our native tree ferns.

In the foreground is a large red flax and in front of that a patch of blue iris which seem to become

a dark purple when viewed against the flax.

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective Blogspot

 

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015