Fiona Francois

One of the most loved birds in Tasmania, the male Superb Fairy Wren is easily distinguished by his vivid blue plumage. Often surrounded by an entourage of brown ‘jenny wrens’, the breeding blue wren is quite obviously showing off! However with their tiny and quick movements, they never seem to pose for long. Nevertheless this drawing was done in a large format to showcase the male Fairy Wren’s exquisite plumage with every feather lovingly rendered. His busy motion suggested by the blurring and movement lines, never sitting still for long. For a bird at the top of the popularity pedestal, this wren needed a suitably impressive branch on which to sit, hence the royally gnarled burl befitting a prince.

Fiona is an Australian artist living in Deloraine, Tasmania. Formerly a video game artist and graphic designer, she now creates her own unique style of imaginative realism. Preferring charcoal and graphite pencil these days to 3d computer software, her work is dramatic, emotive, intricately detailed and imaginative. Centring around the divine feminine; she explores our precarious relationship with nature while imagining a return to oneness with the wilderness. She invites people to respond at an emotional level to the most significant challenge of our time – preventing our devastating impact on the environment and bringing into balance our oneness with each other and nature.

A truly stunning piece of art, Fiona’s ‘fairy wren’ was the perfect fit for the first limited release after our brand evolution and encapsulates our new tagline, the art of craft, completely.