We love to hear from the Plein Air Today community! The following is part of a series that spotlights an artist who loves painting outdoors. Today’s feature is on acrylic painter Lorna Allan, from southern New Zealand.
“Fiordland National Park in the south west of New Zealand is without doubt one of the most outstanding and beautiful natural places in the world,” says Lorna Allan. “Apart from the stunning scenery, there live the Kea. The Kea is a mountain parrot, native to New Zealand, and the heaviest parrot in the world. Their feathers are mainly green and brown, but under their wings is were the magic is. Bright orange and red! They are cheeky, clever, and mischievous. They like to rip the rubber from around your car doors or windscreen and they steal your stuff. No kidding! Last year, no one could understand why some road cones were disappearing or being moved. Someone sent them a video with the answer. Kea were playing with them like a game of ball!”
“I was painting at Monkey Creek on the road to Milford Sound, the last place you can stop before going through the tunnel due to the risk of avalanches. My water bottle with brushes in it sat on the ground by my feet. Hearing a sound, I looked down and there was a kea with one of my brushes in his beak. I instinctively yelled at him (probably shouldn’t have done that). He ran backwards, dropped the brush, and squawked loudly at me, flapping his wings – and there was that gorgeous show of red and orange feathers. Absolutely beautiful!
“Retrieving my brush, I went back to the jar and just stood and looked at it in dumbfounded surprise. The brush he had grabbed had a green handle. I had two with green handles. He had already stolen the first one! Clever bird! He had a preference for the green handled ones and had been determined to get both.”
“Somewhere in Fiordland there is a kea painting the beauty around him. He probably already has a stash of paint tubes from previous thefts. In all honesty, though, they are gorgeous birds with so much character, totally unafraid of humans and much loved by our people and visitors alike.”
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Blog post prepared for the web by Cherie Dawn Haas, Editor of Plein Air Today
