Australian Animals

Digital

Procreate pencil & watercolour brushes

2022

I finally got an iPad at the end of 2021 - gifted to me by my ever-supportive partner! - and have been experimenting with digital art ever since.

Having worked almost primarily with traditional media for most of my life, it was a surprisingly difficult transition to make. In the beginning, I really struggled with the process and feel of the screen-pen experience.

Eventually I realized I didn’t have to reinvent my artistic process though; it was much more similar than I realized and just took some getting used to (as is the truth with everything when it comes down to it).

These Australian marsupials were some of the first final illustrations that I was genuinely satisfied with. The first is a numbat and the second a quoll. Do you want some fun facts about them?

You’re going to get them anyway.

Numbat

Living in Western Australia, these striped buddies are between 14-18” long (think cat).

They’re insectivores and adults will eat up to 20, 000 termites a day (!!).

They’re marsupials, but aren’t closely related to any other living marsupials. In fact, their ancestors diverged from other families 32-42 million years ago.

Quoll

Cute and spotty, quolls are nocturnal carnivorous surviving on lizards, insects, small birds, and mammals smaller than themselves.

They’re also pretty brutal parents - at least by evolutionary misfortune. They can have up to 18 pups in a litter, but only six of those survive since that’s how many teats the mother has to feed them. (Tough titties I guess?)

You can find them in Tasmania, most of Eastern Australia, parts of North & Western Australia, and also in New Guinea.