$19.99
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A pen and ink Dachshund with strange clawed paws sprawls across this whimsical tribute to rural life’s crazy charm.
A Dachshund sprawls across the cover of ‘A Little Bit of Country Crazy,’ its short legs splayed flat against the wooden table beneath it and its paws swapped for something far stranger, oversized, claw like hands that grip at nothing in particular. The pose is loose and a little absurd, the sort of half second slump you might catch a real dog in before it shakes itself out and trots off looking for trouble. Around the dog, ink blots scatter across the page like they escaped the pen mid stroke, and a small bird perches near the tail, watching the whole performance with far more composure than the dog can manage.
The drawing is built entirely from pen and ink, no colour, no shading beyond what cross hatching and line weight can carry on their own. Thick, confident strokes define the dog’s body and the heavy, folded ears, while finer, scratchier lines pick out fur texture and the odd exaggerated claw curling off each paw. The blot splatters aren’t accidents tidied away afterwards, they’re left in on purpose, a small reminder that the artist’s hand was moving fast and loose across the page rather than tracing something safe and predictable. It gives the cover a rough, immediate feel, as though it was drawn in one sitting at a kitchen table rather than laboured over for weeks with an eraser close by.
Inside, the book carries that same restless energy through a full collection of ink sketches pulled straight from Australian rural life, the kind of everyday country moments that get funnier the longer you sit with them. Dogs behaving badly, chooks with more attitude than sense, paddocks that never quite dry out after rain, all rendered with the same dry humour and confident linework as the cover. It reads less like a tidy set of landscapes and more like a running series of small jokes about what it actually feels like living on the land, told by someone who clearly knows the material first hand rather than visiting it for a weekend.
‘A Little Bit of Country Crazy’ makes an easy gift for anyone who has spent real time on a property, or for anyone who just likes their art with a bit of cheek in it. A video preview of the book is available at rds.ink/art-books, worth a look before buying if you want to see more of what’s inside than the cover alone can show.
A Little Bit of Country Crazy – Whimsical Rural Art Book
