I was half way through drawing this chirpy little fellow and I decided I needed a break from it. I felt like I didn’t have in me anymore the patience it takes to add the colours, which says a lot about the year that has been… Drawing birds used to be (still is) my favourite thing to do. And when I am not drawing them, I photograph them.
So I went out and spontaneously decided to buy some visual diaries for my besties, taking a leaf (yes, pun intended) from my number one supporter and longtime bestie @oneangrymotherfrocker ‘s book, who decreed that we are going to get together and we are going to make art. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, but I was found instead. Found by this little beauty with a cover by @artofmelaniehava, whose work I absolutely adore. It was my little sign that I needed.

As we are all looking ahead to what will come, I wish you all a beautiful year, filled with lots and lots of Little Meaningful Signs.
Signs that will tell you that you are doing well. You’re on the right track. You are Loved.
And you are Enough.

here is a little Timelapse of my little red eared finch getting its colours.

littlemeaningfulsigns #australianartists #australianart #visityass #drawing #thelostark #australianbirds #redearedfinch #firetail #derwentpencils #derwentinktense #copicgraphic #copicpens #poscapens #mitsubishipen

“This Painting is A Book (Please Read it)” series is a ludic exploration of art space and public interaction, challenging norms and behavioural patterns. 

It is customary that one should look with their eyes and not with their hands, while viewing art on display. As an artist working with children every day, I embrace their playfulness, answering their quest with an artwork they can touch, examine and interpret in their own way. 

Explore at your own peril: just like a gamer’s Easter Egg, “This Painting is a Book” invites the onlooker to inspect, prospect, seek and decode. The findings might be rewarding; colours, words and senses are mixing and suddenly this painting IS a book without you knowing.

The world is mad, and we’re all falling through the fractures
Of things half done, where we’re half right amidst the clamours;
Half spoken truths, to hide intentions and to ease the conscience
Just like half-hearted love, sold for a petty halfpence.

The world is staring through the bottom of the barrel, half-aware
Of all the halfwits and madmen who hold the mighty triggers
Over impressionable youngsters, bereft of father figures.
And we’re half way to chaos, delusion and despair.

Half whispered wishes abandoned in a lonely patch of green, 

Half-hardy crops and chains of thoughts that wither unforeseen

A life half lived in fears of others and their hissing, 

A pitiful existence, where half the words are missing.

Automatons perpetually trapped in rushing hours
Without a lot of feelings, half-broken and half-free,
Leaders of no one, sealing the deal that always sours,
Who know they’re only half the men they used to be.

A moon – half hidden, raising high above this madness,
Lights up the sky just like the full moon, with just the same bright light
And in the end, all gravitating halves will even out in roundness,
Making the world a whole again, setting its new and unexpected flight.

 © Akka Ballenger Constantin

The Lost Ark is a project that brings to the limelight our unique Australian fauna and flora in the aftermath of the bush fires and the previous draughts. As we go by, the grasslands are coming back to life and we are looking at the possible ways in which we, as artists can raise awareness of all the conservation work that needs to be done.

“Comes the rain” – the latest video in the series – is a gentle approach, observing healing, resilience and beauty.

Original score by Harvey Welsh Images by Akka Ballenger Constantin © 2021 Ballenger/Welsh

#photography #music #mixedmedia #multidisciplinary #contemporaryphotography #wildlifephotography #wildlife #wildlifewarriors #canberraart #Canberra #cbr #cbrarts #canberraartists #australianartist #australia

These poems are a part of series “Songs from my Grasslands”. Music by Canberra-based composer Harvey Welsh.