This painting was created for my daughter Nathalie’s 11th birthday, in January 2009.

Nathalie shares my love for all creatures cuddly and cute, and the painting is overflowing with characters and symbols pertinent to her. Her name is spelled out in pennants and across the top of the sail, as well as in Nordic runes on shields along the bulkhead. The rabbit is her pet from the year we spent in Sweden, called Pinocchio, and the two turtles are her pet red eared sliders, Skalman (named after a famous Swedish cartoon from the Bamse series) and Franklin, after the US cartoon character. The hedgehog was a regular evening visitor to our garden in Sweden.

Celebrating her multicultural heritage I included flags for New Zealand (me) and Sweden (Katarina, her mother), while the sail represents the stars and stripes of America, where Nathalie was born. The constellation of Capricorn is depicted in the sky beside the full moon and the silver birches were common Swedish trees in our neighborhood of Värnamo.

I drew the outlines on a large sheet of thin vellum, in graphite then transferred them painstakingly (emphasis on “pain”) using graphite transfer paper.

I laid in the background sky last, wet on wet after, embarking on the meticulous wet on dry characters. Then I rendered the sails and boat using wet on wet washes, deliberate blooms near the waterline of the bulkhead.

After the sky was washed in wet on wet, I glazed over it to produce the misty trees and hills. The river and reflections were done next with turtles being painted last.