A couple of months ago, I went on a quest at City Hall to find out the name of this flower. I’d taken the photo back in the winter of 2010 and had no idea what kind of flower it was. My niece was painting it for her art class, and the instructor wanted to know what it was called. Apparently this variety of Magnolia is not common in Australia.

Luckily the security guards and gardeners at City Hall are great folks, and I had my answer in just a few minutes. I passed the info along to my niece and forgot about it.

After finishing her painting, my niece was nice enough to send me a print for Xmas. I’ve put the photo and the painting together in a quick diptych here to illustrate her work. Not bad, eh? I hope to see more of it as time goes on.

Heh, she’s looking for some animal shots now that she’s mastering flowers. Guess I’ll have to get a longer lens in the new year…….. (evil grin).

I’ve tried drawing and painting, and decided I have no talent in those arts. Kudos to those that  can master the subtleties involved. A local artist with a lot of the skills is Rain Longston, and you can see some of her realistic painting work on Flickr.