Inspired by the waters around her, Cairns Artist Petra Meikle de Vlas creates mixed media works in her coastal studio around 15 nautical miles from the magnificent Great Barrier Reef. She rarely follows conventional art methods and has developed techniques that creates different effects to closely resemble reef and ocean like formations. The texture is the exposed reef and rocks, the water is the liquid paint, the spray bottle is the force of nature like rain, the hairdryer is the wind, the blowtorch is the sun, the gravity (tilting the board this way and that) is the tide. She is forever experimenting with different methods and tools, forever learning. In addition to paint brushes, Petra uses her hands, air guns, spray bottles, a blow torch, and gravity. Typically working in large formats, the artist “sculpts” her paintings, starting with a board upon which she layers various materials.