My Inspiration
My passion and inspiration for drawing comes from my love of animals, in particular our beautiful Australian Wildlife. Growing up, I was fortunate enough to spend most of my weekends holidaying in the Australian countryside, where I developed my strong appreciation for Australian fauna and flora.
![Samara Dixon Animals.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c67cf_28a159825cac477e89cea74d7c0534c1~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_230,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/3c67cf_28a159825cac477e89cea74d7c0534c1~mv2.jpg)
My Story
Australian born and based, my true passion has always been drawing, and in primary school my teachers used to pull me out of Maths in order to create and draw all of their library promotional material. Hence it was my dream to become an illustrator and create my own children’s book.
It was only recently in Covid Lockdown that I finally had time to get the pencils out after my daughter drew me a beautiful picture of a koala and pinned it on the fridge for me as a surprise. I answered her picture by drawing her one in return of a wombat, which was my first drawing in years.
The wombat that I drew for my daughter was called Willow; one that I had personally met who had touched my heart deeply. I met Willow when I started volunteering weekly at an animal shelter after the 2019 bushfires. Over the next two years at the shelter, I had the privilege of seeing the rehabilitation and release of orphaned wombats, kangaroos, possums, tawny frogmouths, and other magnificent Australian wildlife. Going there was my highlight every week.
A lot of my illustrations are drawn from photos that I have personally taken at the shelter. These are real animals that have been rescued by selfless and beautiful human beings who sacrifice earning income for themselves; and direct every cent they scrape together towards helping the animals they rescue.
I have written and illustrated a children's book called "Willow" inspired by the first wombat I met at the shelter. I have now just completed a second book called "Hello".
The picture that started it all...
![Samara Dixon](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c67cf_6b10c6e96e104a19b75ae193628a0a04~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_800,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Samara%20Dixon.png)
The shelter animals who stole my heart...
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