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MAN: I paint traditional realism -
so those paintings which look pretty photographic,
very much like the real subject.
And the gannets,
the Australasian gannets...
..now, the colony is located in Point Danger,
and it's the mainland colony,
and it's the only mainland colony in Australia.
And I make trips out there occasionally
and just set up and do my sketching and a little bit of photography
to try and capture the shapes of the birds
and the behaviour, mannerisms, characteristics,
then relate that back into the studio
and piece together a realistic, true feel
of what was actually happening at the colony.
Beachcombing has always been one of those things that people think,
"Oh, well, you go along and you pick up bottles and cans
"and things like that."
But, for me, since childhood, since the age of six,
I've always been out, you know, fascinated with birds, seabirds,
so I'm always out looking for birds on the beach.
But all those years of seeing birds at sea
and never getting close to them,
never seeing what they're like on the land...
And because so many birds perish at sea and end up on the beach,
that's a wonderful opportunity
actually to find quite rare species.
For me, growing up and living on the coast,
I've just gained an absolute passion and fascination
for birds and mammals.
I gravitated back here after, you know,
all those years travelling around the world on ships.
I did all that, and then to come back and say,
"Right, this is where I want to make my home,
"and this is what it offers in terms of...
"..for my career as a wildlife artist,
"is, you know, all these wonderful species
"that I'm really, really interested in."
And there's just so many opportunities to see it here.
If you come down to the Great Ocean Road
and put the time in and have a good look,
get away from our, you know - dare I say? -
caravan parks and televisions and radios and that sort of thing
and get out into the forest trails and the beaches,
you'll certainly come across a lot of wonderful things.