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This beautiful watercolour by Felicity Grant is from her select “Saddle” series. Felicity creates a very small number of these large saddle works every year due to the time it takes to create such detail in her finely painted pieces.

Saddles for Felicity are a metaphor for journeys, not only on horseback, but also through life.

Felicity grew up on a property and spent many hours in saddles riding horses. She has kept several of her old saddles and preserves them in wonderful condition. The saddle in this work is an old Wieneke Saddle that Felicity loves. She has depicted it here with its saddle bag. The saddle and bag have travelled hundreds of miles across the landscape and hold many stories.

If you look carefully, you’ll notice a beautiful little bird in the composition, a White Throated Warbler, or Gerygone, which is colloquially referred to as the ‘Native Canary’. The White-throated Gerygone is a very small grey brown bird with a white throat and spot on the forehead, has a red eye and distinctive bright yellow underparts with a white-tipped tail.

The White-throated Gerygone is quiet most times of year, but during breeding season in Spring, they become more obvious when the male birds sing throughout the day. Their distinctive song is a rich, sweet and musical trill or warble, with each song lasting for up to 20 seconds at a time. The warbler’s song is a familiar sound of the bush during the birds’ breeding season. They can be found from south-eastern Australia, through Queensland and across northern Australia to the Kimberley region in Western Australia, and dwell mostly in open Eucalypt woodlands and forests, and in vegetation along watercourses.

When painting the watercolour, Felicity purposely made the warbler like a ‘Where’s Wally’ in the painting. He’s not obvious at first glance, but how subtle and beautiful he really is when you find him, and shown in the painting observing everything else around. As Felicity says: “Like all wildlife, they’re there if you look hard enough.”