Travel & adventures of Mara Dall

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Come with Mara Dall on a magical journey of the mind and soul

Journey with Mara Dall for travel and adventure.

Join Mara Dall for a journey into the unknown.

Join us for a transformative journey down the rabbit hole and beyond, to wild places of the earth, of the mind, and of the soul.

Explore ancient mysteries and new frontiers… sacred sites and irreverent thoughts… from the outer reaches of the cosmos to your own backyard.

Every day we bring pictures to delight you, stories to inspire you, information to intrigue you, and thoughts to challenge you.

Are you ready?

Fasten your life-jacket, grab your water bottle, and jump right in.

Life is too short to drink bad wine

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About Mara Dall

Mara Dall is a writer and traveller, exploring wild, magical places of the earth, of the mind, and of the soul.
She has a passion for mysteries, ancient and modern, and delights in sharing her discoveries.

Jacarandas on the Brisbane River

Jacaranda trees are magical, and here in south-east Queensland they are particularly magnificent in October and November. They celebrate my birthday – and end of year exams. I figured that they would make a good subject for watercolour painting. So on our Urban Sketcher meet at Kangaroo Point – at the tail end of jacaranda season – I was on […] Read more »

Sketching around Perth, Western Australia

Perth on the western coast of Australia has different seascapes than on the east coast, with more rocks and less of the wide expanses of sand than on the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. And more interesting for sketching as well… This is the first watercolour in a new sketchbook: Handbook journal, 9cm X 20 cm. The panoramic format […] Read more »

Watercolour Pears

One of the final exercises for Jane Blundell’s course in Mastering Watercolour was to do watercolour pears in several different iterations. Each one used a limited palette of just 4 colours: a palette of 3 primaries plus Burnt Sienna. Painting apples in watercolour I was a bit anxious about this exercise… I had previously tried to paint apples in watercolour, […] Read more »

Peru Watercolour Journey: Heading to Bolivia

We travelled to several of the ancient sites in Peru – but we were continually moving, and there was no time to pause for sketching. However, we visited Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) on Lake Titicaca, and getting up at sunrise while most of our group was still asleep, I found time to sketch this view of the […] Read more »

Peru Watercolour Journey: Pisac

Being new to travel sketching, it’s still hard for me to overcome the self-consciousness of drawing and painting with an audience… The Pisac Sunday market began early, and continued until mid-afternoon. It’s the time and place for locals to get their weekly supplies, and to trade their goods. Some sections of the market cater primarily to tourists, and by 10 […] Read more »

Peru Watercolour Journey: Preparation

Peru is a place of awesome visual grandeur, and I wanted to celebrate some of this in my travel sketching journals. The trip came at a time when I was still very much finding my identity as an artist. So this post includes an eclectic collection: cartoons, still-life, landscape, urban sketching. It’s all part of the journey… New Schminke Travel Palette […] Read more »

Footcare project – Peru

The Footcare Project was part of my trip to Peru in 2015, with Victoria and David Webby. David – a podiatrist – had organised a community project to visit some of the mountain villages around Pisac, prior to the formal part of the trip, to provide some simple education and assistance for foot care in the communities. These communities were […] Read more »

Family Support in Logan

During 2015, working for a family support service in Logan, I was approached to design a logo for our new program. The logo needed to represent our multicultural community, as well as our work to support families. This was the result… The concept went through several iterations, as all creative work does. Here is the original ink and pencil sketch: I […] Read more »

Know Your Rights – Police and Pirates

My first ever commissioned piece of artwork: a cartoon to be used as a slide for a Know Your Rights seminar in Brisbane. I won’t attempt to explain the symbolism, which is complicated… But I hope, dear Reader, that you can enjoy my artwork nevertheless… Read more »

Cartoons On The Battle For Scottish Independence

The Scots have been battling for their independence for just about forever… not as determinedly as the Irish, but resentment for the English overlords and their exploitation is very deep-seated. In September 2014 the issue went to the ballot box – and the independence faction lost the vote. In the end, the economic benefits outweighed national pride. Still, it was a close […] Read more »

Learning Cartooning

This post is not about learning cartooning. It’s a couple of cartoons on learning cartooning… My fellow students from Da Vinci will recognise these cartoons, and what they depict. And maybe some others will recognise it too… Learning perspective Learning conceptual cartooning My fellow Da Vinci students might recognise not only the situation but also themselves or their cartoon characters […] Read more »

What makes a cartoon funny?

Can humour be taught? Conceptual cartooning is like learning to surf… there is a fine point of balance that is exhilarating when you get it, neither too trite nor too incomprehensible. You are aiming for a concept that is unusual enough to catch attention, but will convey the idea in a flash. And just about all humour contains an element of incongruity… These […] Read more »

My Cartooning Journey

I started my cartooning journey in July 2013. Small steps, daily practice, and the teaching and support of the Da Vinci Cartooning Course with Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics.com. Here is the slideshow video I made to show my progress. You can hit the pause button if you want to see more of any one of my drawings – it goes […] Read more »

Watercolour Pencil – Working With Layers

I had been using watercolour pencils for a while when I did this – but still quite tentatively up to now. For this cockerel I did a light pencil sketch, and then worked on the colour in layers, lightest first, and blending with water on each layer and letting it dry before adding more colour. I added ink to some […] Read more »

Watercolour Cartoons – Still Life

I’m discovering why beginners in watercolour painting begin with still life studies – by choosing a simple object, you are forced to focus on the details of colour and shape, and especially on the light and shadows within the colour of an object. Still Life – White Mug I did this from a tutorial in a book, with a white […] Read more »