Portrait of a Neighbour

I drew this portrait of my artist friend and neighbour, Pam Griffin, while she worked at the life drawing class. Later I made a painting from the drawing showing two motifs that Pam often returns to in her paintings; the Pukeko and the Taniwha.
The Pukeko is a bird that is a common sight on the rural roads of New Zealand as it likes to live in ditches and scrub areas on the edges of farms and roads and the Taniwha is a Maori mythical monster that lives in water. Like me Pam is also a mural artist and her husband Trevor is a sculptor working mostly in stone and bone. It's kinda nice having artists living next door.
Very nice in fact..