Oparara Estuary
From the Source to the Sea
I painted these images for an information panel that will be going up at the Oparara Estuary picnic area and car-park early 2020. These painting are designed to be printed on two different panels. The two forest scenes and the estuary river bed scene are on the top panel, with the caves and along the top of the estuary river bed cutout so you can see through to the second panel. The second panel has the cave inserts and Oparara estuary bird scene, there is a spacer between the two panels which helps with a 3D affect, and gives the illusion of looking through the Oparara caves.
The finished panel is 180cm by 100cm so my paintings had to be fairly large and detail(my largest so far) . The composition also had to work between the seven paintings so a lot of time was spent playing around with the layout before getting my paint brushes out. After half a year and over 800 hours these seven illustrations have been my most comprehensive, enjoyable and rewarding to date.
Left hand side, virgin forest scene, watercolour & pen 100cm x 70cm
This picture tells the story of the per-Polynesian bush around the Oparara river and some of the wildlife that lived then. The birds in this painting are the upland Moa, Saddleback, Blue duck, some Fantail's, Kakapo, Kokako, Tomtit and a flying Giant Eagle, also in the water are some whitebait, a common bully, Torrent fish, some whitebait and banded Kokopu
Oparara Estuary river bed, watercolour 145cm x 35cm cutaway
This is to illustrate the common wildlife that can be found in the muds and sands of the Oparara Estuary, and also shows the way they protect themselves from low tide by burrowing.
Marine worms - Oweniid worm (filter feeder from the water) ,Catworm (predatory worm), Lugworm (mud eater/filter).
Tunneling Mud Crab, Sandhopper, Sand Shrimp, Mud Snail, Estuarine Barnacle (on Mudsnail and cockle), Cockles and Pipi.
Right hand side, Regenerating bush scene, watercolour & pen 100cm x 70cm
Painted to show how life go's on and can recover after the bush has been destroyed by logging, also shows some of the diverse wildlife species that calls the Oparara Valley home
The birds in this painting are the Great Spotted Kiwi, Tui, New Zealand Robin, Weka, New Zealand Pigeon, New Zealand Falcon And Bellbird.
There is also a Forest Gecko and some Giant Carnivorous Snails hunting for native earthworms.
Oparara Estuary Wildlife, watercolour & pen 145cm x 55cm
Painted to show the wildlife that can be seen on the estuary at various times of the year.
Fish- Yellow Eye Mullet (Herring), Eel (long and short-finned), Sand Flounder ,a Giant Kokopu and Inaga.
Birds- Little Shag, White-faced Heron,Cattle Egret, Oystercatcher (variable & pied) ,Bar-tailed Godwit, Caspian Tern, Pied Stilt, Royal Spoonbill and Gulls (black-billed & black-backed)
Right hand side cave insert, watercolour & pen
Designed to go in/under the cave cut outs of the right hand side regenerating bush scene to help with a 3D effect. shows the underground river system of the Oparara Cave's. in this image I have added a Koura (freshwater crayfish), Glow worms, an Upland Moa skeleton, Kiwi skull, and a Haast's eagle skeleton, all of which I saw when I went on the Oparara cave tour.
