Painting & Wandering: A Creative Guide to

Takayna / Tarkine

Welcome to a slow art experience inspired by Takayna / Tarkine—one of the last great temperate rainforests on Earth. This guide is designed to help you connect your painting pad with real places, encounters, and reflections across lutruwita’s wild northwest.The important thing here is take your time and get immersed in the place and let the painting flow, don’t force it be patient and get to know the country you are on whilst you paint.

Bring your takayna pad, a warm layer, your travel brush, and your sense of wonder.

🌿 1. Find the Creatures in Your Pad

Each artwork in your pad features a being or place of significance—here’s where you might encounter their spirit:

• Masked Owl (Tryeena) – Watch the tree lines at dusk around Marrawah or Corinna. Sit quietly. Let your ears do the listening.

• Tasmanian Tiger (Lagunta) – Walk the Tarkine Forest Drive and imagine the land alive with striped movement. The thylacine lives on in story and shadow.

• Spotted-tail Quoll (Luwayina) – Try early morning or twilight near Arthur River or at Trowutta Arch Reserve. Look low, listen for rustle.

• Orange-bellied & Swift Parrots (Willeetya) – Seek them in coastal eucalypt areas near Smithton. Watch the skies. Binoculars help.

• Giant Freshwater Crayfish (Tateyer) – These ancient water-dwellers are found in the clean rivers near the Pieman. Try the Corinna eco-cruise and sketch from the shore.

• The Nut / Munatrik (Stanley) – For the view featured in your pad, walk to the north end of Godfreys Beach and look back. It’s volcanic, timeless, powerful.

• Mycena interrupta (Meroreer) – Look gently along damp fallen logs near Philosopher Falls or Whyte River Track. These fungi glow like spirits when the light is right.

🖌️ 2. Where to Pause for a Paint

• Picnic & paint spots:

• Trowutta Arch Reserve – Sit among moss and stone. Paint while listening to the rainforest breathe.

• Lake Chisholm – Still, circular, full of sky. A place for quiet reflection and watercolour wash.

• Corinna – The edge of the Pieman River is a perfect painting place. Sit on the bank, open to the sounds.

• Moments of awe:

• Philosopher Falls – Walk the winding track through mist and mycena.

• Sumac Lookout – Gaze over ancient forest. Let the colours seep into your palette.

• Edge of the World (Gardiner Point) – Where wind and ocean meet without end. A place to pause and honour vastness.

🎨 3. Tips for Painting on - the - go

• Bring your travel brush, pigment palette, and a small container or spray bottle of water.

• Find a rock, tree, or patch of ground that welcomes you.

• Take a few quiet breaths before you begin. Let the land tell you what to paint.

• Don’t worry about perfection—just respond.

🖤❤️💛 4. The Sacred Stop – takayna / Sundown Point

Peerapper Country

• Walk gently along the rocks at Sundown Point, where the wind meets the sea and the rocks hold the old people’s hands.
  Here, petroglyphs—cut carefully into stone—carry stories too old for paper.
  This is not art. This is instruction. This is ceremony.
  The shapes are not random. They are knowledge carved into rock.
  To sit here is to sit with ancestors, and to acknowledge that this land is Aboriginal land.
  To listen here is to hear Country speak back.