A little late in posting this, but finally got here in the end.
This morning I looked to my list of "to do's" for the Easter run-up and printed off a number of new and replacement ID signs. The Flamingo Paddock had to have all but one of its nine species replaced due to curling older signs (The unseasonal hot weather has taken its toll on some of the ID signs) and as there are two ID sign points in that aviary/paddock that was a total of 16 to be printed, cut, laminated, cut, stuck with double sided and put on display... along with about four other birds IDs. Then there was the ID, with the flagtail characin fish added, to be put up in the Aquarium... this would have to wait until late in the afternoon as the brilliant weather has meant there are many more visitors than we usually get at this time of year. This is great news, but does mean that it can be tricky trying to work up a step ladder when there are many people and kids around in a confined space. I'm also aware that it is not so nice for the public to have someone up a step ladder blocking their view of a tank as they walk through... So it is easier to wait until later in the day when most have gone home, to do such work.
So the morning was mostly spent working on the computer, as many of the ID's I am having to convert across from a Quark file to an Illustrator file before I print them. This is an ongoing job that will have to be done for all the ID signs (which is several hundred) I have on file in the computer. So for the time being rather than opening an ID file and being able to print it straight away.. I have to spend a few mins on each one, converting it.
After lunch there was an 'All Staff Meeting'. There are always two, each the same, held on different days, at different times, enabling all staff to attend one or the other. These are held every few months and are designed to keep all the staff apprised of what's happening with the zoo's plans for the future, coming season and any other interesting events or bits of news.
After attending the meeting I then was required to draw a dinosaur footprint. And no... we don't have any dinosaurs kept at the zoo! This is something special for the kids over Easter at the zoo.
Anna, my colleague, printed an image of a footprint from her computer - one that she has used on some of her design work recently and I then drew a 2" grid over it and hot-footed it to the Maintenance Department yard where a 8'x4' ply board was laying on the floor waiting for me. With a pencil I drew a 10" grid on this and then onto that I copied across the dino footprint, again with a pencil so that it was about a metre across in width and just over that in length. Once I was happy with the shape I used a marker pen to go over the outline. I use a marker pen as it is easier for the guy who has to cut round the outline with a jigsaw to see where the line is.
This is a job for the Maintenance Department - they will cut out that shape and use the hole in the board as a stencil to spray footprints onto one of the big lawns... as if a dinosaur had walked across it. Kids love this kind of thing don't they.... some adults too. As I was drawing the shape, several staff passed by and were intrigued and a little excited that I was doing a dinosaur footprint. Nigel, the Curator of Birds, said it looked remarkably like the footprint of a cassowary... which until recently we had housed at the zoo.
The cassowaries is are a type of bird, along the lines of an emu or ostrich. They may not be as big as either of those, but they are still big birds that can kick out with devastating force. Of their three toes, the inner one sports a long, thick claw with which they are easily able to inflict lethal injuries.
Having completed that job, it was then a bug rush to get the ID's I had done up and on display. Anna, helped me get the ID's up in the Aquarium and in the Flamingo Paddock before returning to the studio. This was a great help as time was pressing on and the animal houses (including the Aquarium and Flamingo Paddock) were shut and locked at 5pm... I didn't finish with the dino footprint til 4.40pm!
We got the Aquarium done first and were in the Flamingo Paddock, pulling off the old signs and sticking up the new ones when the keeper came to lock up. Thankfully, she kindly waited so we could finish.
Then there were just a few signs left to go on a few of the outside aviaries before I headed back to the studio... just in time to clear my desk and computer go home at 5.30pm.
There are still a few outstanding jobs on my "To do" list ... mainly cleaning off scuff and graffiti marks... but they will have to wait until Monday.
Saturday, 31 March 2012
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Black and blue
This morning I finished the flagtail, completing its fins - refining the ones I did yesterday and adding the pelvic and pectoral fins today. I then hot-footed it across to the Aquarium to meet Jonny for him to look over the painting and check that I have the details right and that I haven't done something silly like forget to paint in a fin or something!
After getting a thumbs up I then returned to the studio to scan the painting to the computer. I then start the process of preparing it for use on the ID signage. I open up the scanned image and enlarge it so that I can easily see where I am going with my adjustments. As the black that I painted for the background never scans in as 100% I have to change this so that it looks strong and dense as a backlit sign.
The photo editing software we use is Photoshop and I select the pencil tool and set its width to a size that I can trace round my painted fish. This setting has to be changed a few times, altering the pen size from 30 pixels to 1 pixel, as I work my way around the fish shape negotiating intricate spaces between fins and open mouths and back to the large easy expanses. Recently, I have taken to choosing a colour that is easy to see against the black as it makes knowing where I have been and where I need to go a lot simpler to keep track of. Trying to work 100% black onto 80% black is far too hard on the eyes at times... so I'm all for making things easier.
This photo shows the pen tool size (the white circle with a dot inside) and the blue line I am putting around the fish. I have to get the blue line as close to the fish as possible without going over the fish.
Once I have gone around the whole fish I then make the pen tool size bigger and block in the rest of the black background to be completely blue.
Now with the dropper tool I select the blue colour and then the "colour range" option. This creates a mask encompassing the blue area, enabling me to change anything within that area without affecting the rest of the image - i.e. the fish itself. I click on the colour block in the tool palette and change the settings of the black to 100% and then with the bucket tool selected, click on the blue area and it switches to black in one easy move.
Once I am sure I have no stray patches of colour or "not quite black" dots that I might have missed I change the images colour mode to CYMK from RGB and save it as a tiff file. This is then put into the relevant tank folder in the Aquarium folder on the computer, ready to be added to the ID file. Later in the afternoon I added the photo to the ID file and typed in the relevant details. It is now ready to be printed and then put up in the Aquarium, which I hope to do tomorrow ready for the start of the Easter school breaks which start this coming weekend.
Again it was a fabulously sunny warm day.. hard to believe it is only March. This afternoon I did an "ID sweep"... where I walk the zoo grounds and animal houses checking ID signs for wear and tear and cleaning cobwebs and muck off where necessary. I make a list of what needs doing as I do my walk so that nothing gets forgotten. So now I have a few jobs to do from that list tomorrow... a few replacement IDs to be printed and some more intense cleaning with anti-graffitti wipes for some signs and interpretation panels.
As I walked around it was pleasing to note that there is a lot of bird song noticeable in the zoo. Walking by one aviary (which is close to the building in which I work) I smiled as I listened to particular favourites of mine.... the Sumatran laughing thrushes (Garrulax bicolor). We have several pairs around the zoo and they all sing and call between each other and they have such a beautiful call, it's a real delight to hear. Melodic and warbling, they sing for ages. Another call I like to hear is that of the Victoria crowned pigeons (Goura victoria) they have this amazing booming call, deep and resonant like the noise you can make blowing across the top of an empty bottle. As I went by their aviary one was making this noise outside and it's partner was indoors returning the call. Wonderful. They bow their heads tucking their 'chins' to their throats. In another aviary the Von der Deckens hornbill (Tockus deckeni) was making a peculiar call that I would find hard to describe, but it was most intriguing so I stopped to listen for a minute or so. And amongst such exotic species there are all the wild birds that use the zoo as their home... sparrows, starlings, blue tits, great tits, wrens, collared doves, feral pigeons, coots and mallards - to name but a few. There's such a lovely array of sound and on a day like today it just lifts the spirits to notice and listen to it.
After getting a thumbs up I then returned to the studio to scan the painting to the computer. I then start the process of preparing it for use on the ID signage. I open up the scanned image and enlarge it so that I can easily see where I am going with my adjustments. As the black that I painted for the background never scans in as 100% I have to change this so that it looks strong and dense as a backlit sign.
The photo editing software we use is Photoshop and I select the pencil tool and set its width to a size that I can trace round my painted fish. This setting has to be changed a few times, altering the pen size from 30 pixels to 1 pixel, as I work my way around the fish shape negotiating intricate spaces between fins and open mouths and back to the large easy expanses. Recently, I have taken to choosing a colour that is easy to see against the black as it makes knowing where I have been and where I need to go a lot simpler to keep track of. Trying to work 100% black onto 80% black is far too hard on the eyes at times... so I'm all for making things easier.
This photo shows the pen tool size (the white circle with a dot inside) and the blue line I am putting around the fish. I have to get the blue line as close to the fish as possible without going over the fish.
Once I have gone around the whole fish I then make the pen tool size bigger and block in the rest of the black background to be completely blue.
Now with the dropper tool I select the blue colour and then the "colour range" option. This creates a mask encompassing the blue area, enabling me to change anything within that area without affecting the rest of the image - i.e. the fish itself. I click on the colour block in the tool palette and change the settings of the black to 100% and then with the bucket tool selected, click on the blue area and it switches to black in one easy move. 
Once I am sure I have no stray patches of colour or "not quite black" dots that I might have missed I change the images colour mode to CYMK from RGB and save it as a tiff file. This is then put into the relevant tank folder in the Aquarium folder on the computer, ready to be added to the ID file. Later in the afternoon I added the photo to the ID file and typed in the relevant details. It is now ready to be printed and then put up in the Aquarium, which I hope to do tomorrow ready for the start of the Easter school breaks which start this coming weekend.Again it was a fabulously sunny warm day.. hard to believe it is only March. This afternoon I did an "ID sweep"... where I walk the zoo grounds and animal houses checking ID signs for wear and tear and cleaning cobwebs and muck off where necessary. I make a list of what needs doing as I do my walk so that nothing gets forgotten. So now I have a few jobs to do from that list tomorrow... a few replacement IDs to be printed and some more intense cleaning with anti-graffitti wipes for some signs and interpretation panels.
As I walked around it was pleasing to note that there is a lot of bird song noticeable in the zoo. Walking by one aviary (which is close to the building in which I work) I smiled as I listened to particular favourites of mine.... the Sumatran laughing thrushes (Garrulax bicolor). We have several pairs around the zoo and they all sing and call between each other and they have such a beautiful call, it's a real delight to hear. Melodic and warbling, they sing for ages. Another call I like to hear is that of the Victoria crowned pigeons (Goura victoria) they have this amazing booming call, deep and resonant like the noise you can make blowing across the top of an empty bottle. As I went by their aviary one was making this noise outside and it's partner was indoors returning the call. Wonderful. They bow their heads tucking their 'chins' to their throats. In another aviary the Von der Deckens hornbill (Tockus deckeni) was making a peculiar call that I would find hard to describe, but it was most intriguing so I stopped to listen for a minute or so. And amongst such exotic species there are all the wild birds that use the zoo as their home... sparrows, starlings, blue tits, great tits, wrens, collared doves, feral pigeons, coots and mallards - to name but a few. There's such a lovely array of sound and on a day like today it just lifts the spirits to notice and listen to it.
Monday, 26 March 2012
Flagtail gets his flag tail
Monday morning ... and it started chilly, but oh so beautifully sunny. It promised to be another unseasonally warm day and it certainly fulfilled that promise. Shame I was stuck in the studio for most of it!
However, that's not so bad as the flagtail characin illustration is moving along much more smoothly now.. no more fighting with scale size and pattern... now it's all about trying to get the fish to look silvery.
I spent the morning continually adding pale blues and yellows to the scales to soften the colour effect and create that illusion of their shiny surface. I had to work carefully so that I did not lift any colour or mess up the scales that I had laboriously struggled with previously.
So again it was quite demanding on the eyes and I took a number of "eye-breaks" to lessen the strain on them. The fish illustration itself is about 6" (15cms) from mouth to tail tip - the body is roughly 3½" (9cms), so I'm hardly helping myself working to a smaller size... however I have to find the balance between amount of time spent painting (and obviously the bigger it is the longer it takes to paint) and the size at which my eyes can work effectively. Sadly as I get older the eyesight degenerates and in the 16 years I have worked at the zoo there is a difference in the size and amount of fine detailing I used to do to what I can do now. Ah, old age, as they say never comes alone.
There came a point at which I wasn't sure if I needed to go further with the scale work. I had a feeling I needed to do more but sometimes you can be looking at something for so long that you start to lose the overall effect. So I asked my work colleagues, Phil and Anna, for their viewpoint. I asked... when you look at it do you see a multi-coloured fish or a shiny fish reflecting light? The conclusion was I was on the right track but just needed to do a little more, as it wasn't quite there yet. So on I plodded and about midway through the afternoon I sat back and asked the question again... this time they were happy.... he looked like a shiny fish.
As luck would have it, a friend contacted me to say she was in the zoo with her kids... I grabbed the chance to have a break away and out of the studio and made my way to the children's play area, where they were. As I passed the gibbon island the large wooden climbing structure dominating the island was shored up with scaffolding and sat up high on a platform were two very un-gibbon like figures. Two of the primate keeping staff were sat splicing new rope fixings for the gibbons. I was a little envious of them being sat high with such a great view over the zoo on such a lovely afternoon. The gibbons were shut in their house, safely tucked away for the time the refurbishment work was being carried out on their island. The Easter weekend is the start of the "season" for the zoo so there is usually a rush of improvements, tidying and new stuff to be seen to and done beforehand.
After spending a lovely half hour with my friend I went back to the studio and looking at the illustration with fresh eyes I felt happy with it so far. Next I painted the head in and then started on the fins. This fish has a striking tail and is aptly named because of it. I finished the day having done four of six different types of fin this fish has - the caudal (tail), dorsal, adipose (small fin behind dorsal fin) and anal fin.
Tomorrow this beastie will be finished - ready to be checked and hopefully ok'd.
However, that's not so bad as the flagtail characin illustration is moving along much more smoothly now.. no more fighting with scale size and pattern... now it's all about trying to get the fish to look silvery.
I spent the morning continually adding pale blues and yellows to the scales to soften the colour effect and create that illusion of their shiny surface. I had to work carefully so that I did not lift any colour or mess up the scales that I had laboriously struggled with previously.
So again it was quite demanding on the eyes and I took a number of "eye-breaks" to lessen the strain on them. The fish illustration itself is about 6" (15cms) from mouth to tail tip - the body is roughly 3½" (9cms), so I'm hardly helping myself working to a smaller size... however I have to find the balance between amount of time spent painting (and obviously the bigger it is the longer it takes to paint) and the size at which my eyes can work effectively. Sadly as I get older the eyesight degenerates and in the 16 years I have worked at the zoo there is a difference in the size and amount of fine detailing I used to do to what I can do now. Ah, old age, as they say never comes alone.
There came a point at which I wasn't sure if I needed to go further with the scale work. I had a feeling I needed to do more but sometimes you can be looking at something for so long that you start to lose the overall effect. So I asked my work colleagues, Phil and Anna, for their viewpoint. I asked... when you look at it do you see a multi-coloured fish or a shiny fish reflecting light? The conclusion was I was on the right track but just needed to do a little more, as it wasn't quite there yet. So on I plodded and about midway through the afternoon I sat back and asked the question again... this time they were happy.... he looked like a shiny fish.
As luck would have it, a friend contacted me to say she was in the zoo with her kids... I grabbed the chance to have a break away and out of the studio and made my way to the children's play area, where they were. As I passed the gibbon island the large wooden climbing structure dominating the island was shored up with scaffolding and sat up high on a platform were two very un-gibbon like figures. Two of the primate keeping staff were sat splicing new rope fixings for the gibbons. I was a little envious of them being sat high with such a great view over the zoo on such a lovely afternoon. The gibbons were shut in their house, safely tucked away for the time the refurbishment work was being carried out on their island. The Easter weekend is the start of the "season" for the zoo so there is usually a rush of improvements, tidying and new stuff to be seen to and done beforehand.
After spending a lovely half hour with my friend I went back to the studio and looking at the illustration with fresh eyes I felt happy with it so far. Next I painted the head in and then started on the fins. This fish has a striking tail and is aptly named because of it. I finished the day having done four of six different types of fin this fish has - the caudal (tail), dorsal, adipose (small fin behind dorsal fin) and anal fin.
Tomorrow this beastie will be finished - ready to be checked and hopefully ok'd.
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Conquering the scales
With a few alterations on yesterday's work I started to feel that things were now heading in the right direction, scale-wise. However, yesterday I had only placed the position of the scales with rough blobs, now I needed to shape them, thin the lines between each scale and even out spacing. This took me all day and was extremely hard on the eyes, I could feel the muscles around my eyes start to feel the strain. I had to keep my head from getting too close as I worked, as I would lose focus if I got nearer than a forearms distance. But I do have a tendancy to get be too close to the work.
Consequently I needed to take frequent breaks by looking out of the closest window, so that my eyes focused on something distant to relax them. I found the golden lion tamarins playing chase with each other in the enclosure opposite the building I was in, a worthwhile distraction. To see their dark honey coloured coats shining in the Spring sunshine and watch their antics as they bounded about was a delight.
Over lunch a friend visited the zoo, on my way to meet her I passed the meerkat enclosure - they were all out enjoying the warm sunshine. The three babies were tucked up to Mum's tummy suckling and the adults were all sat up on their hind legs facing the sun on various rocks and logs. I love the little chattery "mur" "mur" noises they make to each other.... but no time to stop and listen now. My friend Kate and I sat in a quiet spot by the hebaeceous border and apart from a few folk walking by the aviairs close by, our only other companions were three of the many wild moorhens that choose to live in the zoo. With Spring in the air there's a lot of displaying going on right now.
Finally not long after lunch I was done on the scales. They weren't perfect but it was the best I could do without either blowing a gasket, or reducing my eyesight to a fuzzy mess. I felt it was a fair representation of the scale patterning and size.
Next I put on some shadowing on each scale with a pale grey wash. Although this will be over painted with colour it should show through enough to give scales more depth. I laid some colour washes over the body as I had done yesterday, before I had decided to paint it all out again. Laying wet washes over gouache has to be done very carefully so as not to lift the paint underneath. It's hard to say exactly how I do this, except that having used this medium for over 30 years experience has given me a feel for just how much water to add to the wash or how long the paint needs to dry before I go over it. It's not an exact science and difficult to teach... it really is a question of learningt to feel your way with the paint. As I did before, I build up colours and tones to form the body shape with various shades of blue, blue green, pink, purple, green, yellow, peach and orange. The colour is put on thinly enough for the dark lines between the scales still to be showing.
I finished the day by starting to add some colour to the scales to form highlights and to hopefully create the look of a silver fish reflecting light rather than being a rainbow colour fish. This I can continue next week now, as my days at the zoo for this week are done. Time to go and work at home for a few days.
Consequently I needed to take frequent breaks by looking out of the closest window, so that my eyes focused on something distant to relax them. I found the golden lion tamarins playing chase with each other in the enclosure opposite the building I was in, a worthwhile distraction. To see their dark honey coloured coats shining in the Spring sunshine and watch their antics as they bounded about was a delight.
Over lunch a friend visited the zoo, on my way to meet her I passed the meerkat enclosure - they were all out enjoying the warm sunshine. The three babies were tucked up to Mum's tummy suckling and the adults were all sat up on their hind legs facing the sun on various rocks and logs. I love the little chattery "mur" "mur" noises they make to each other.... but no time to stop and listen now. My friend Kate and I sat in a quiet spot by the hebaeceous border and apart from a few folk walking by the aviairs close by, our only other companions were three of the many wild moorhens that choose to live in the zoo. With Spring in the air there's a lot of displaying going on right now.
Finally not long after lunch I was done on the scales. They weren't perfect but it was the best I could do without either blowing a gasket, or reducing my eyesight to a fuzzy mess. I felt it was a fair representation of the scale patterning and size.
Next I put on some shadowing on each scale with a pale grey wash. Although this will be over painted with colour it should show through enough to give scales more depth. I laid some colour washes over the body as I had done yesterday, before I had decided to paint it all out again. Laying wet washes over gouache has to be done very carefully so as not to lift the paint underneath. It's hard to say exactly how I do this, except that having used this medium for over 30 years experience has given me a feel for just how much water to add to the wash or how long the paint needs to dry before I go over it. It's not an exact science and difficult to teach... it really is a question of learningt to feel your way with the paint. As I did before, I build up colours and tones to form the body shape with various shades of blue, blue green, pink, purple, green, yellow, peach and orange. The colour is put on thinly enough for the dark lines between the scales still to be showing.
I finished the day by starting to add some colour to the scales to form highlights and to hopefully create the look of a silver fish reflecting light rather than being a rainbow colour fish. This I can continue next week now, as my days at the zoo for this week are done. Time to go and work at home for a few days.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Getting in a flip flap
Arrived at work this morning to find I had left my "short-range" glasses at home! There were no jobs I could do until lunchtime, that I wouldn't need them for, when I could drive back home to get my glasses, so I had no choice but to go home straight away to retrieve them. I dropped a couple of things up to the Maintenance Department before I took the journey home.
The cats were surprised to see me and stared at me blearily from sleepy faces as I dashed past the bedroom where they were both lying on the floor in the sun. Grabbing my glasses from my room I bid them a hasty goodbye and headed back to the zoo. In all my little excusion took 50 mins, time which I made up later as I worked through my lunch break.
Now I could get back to the illustration I started yesterday the flagtail characin. I looked at the photos I had taken of this fish and picked out the colours I could see on its silver reflective scales. I then lay in careful washes of colour over the pale base colour I lay down yesterday, using the colours to create the form of the body shape.
Then with a watery mix of mid green I started outlining the individual scales.
I got part way to covering the body in these outlines when I realised it was all going wrong, I tried a few times to correct it but in doing so I was ruining the lovely washes I had done. The scales have a specific pattern and size so it was important I get the look right. The line of the scales as they go over the body and the varying sizes also indicate the body shape beneath. I decided to try the other approach I had thought about previously, so made the sad decision to paint out the wonderful colour array I had done. So with a greyish purple mix I covered all those lovely colours, leaving me with a dark fish shape instead.
So now the approach would be to paint in the curve of each scale. Easier said than done.... I battled with the patterning all day, trying differing ways of achieving it. I'd be happy that I was getting it right until I'd put it at arms length and looked at it carefully and then I'd notice that I had painted the scales too big, or too randomly, or not in the right pattern or not depicting the body shape.... blah, blah, blah! It was driving me nuts and making my eyes go squiffy and my brain to mush! A couple of times I walked away completely and took a wander to try and clear my head and come back refreshed. Didn't work... so I was glad when 5.30 came and I could go home. I had had enough.. hopefully tomorrow will be more successful.
The cats were surprised to see me and stared at me blearily from sleepy faces as I dashed past the bedroom where they were both lying on the floor in the sun. Grabbing my glasses from my room I bid them a hasty goodbye and headed back to the zoo. In all my little excusion took 50 mins, time which I made up later as I worked through my lunch break.
Now I could get back to the illustration I started yesterday the flagtail characin. I looked at the photos I had taken of this fish and picked out the colours I could see on its silver reflective scales. I then lay in careful washes of colour over the pale base colour I lay down yesterday, using the colours to create the form of the body shape.
Then with a watery mix of mid green I started outlining the individual scales.
I got part way to covering the body in these outlines when I realised it was all going wrong, I tried a few times to correct it but in doing so I was ruining the lovely washes I had done. The scales have a specific pattern and size so it was important I get the look right. The line of the scales as they go over the body and the varying sizes also indicate the body shape beneath. I decided to try the other approach I had thought about previously, so made the sad decision to paint out the wonderful colour array I had done. So with a greyish purple mix I covered all those lovely colours, leaving me with a dark fish shape instead.
So now the approach would be to paint in the curve of each scale. Easier said than done.... I battled with the patterning all day, trying differing ways of achieving it. I'd be happy that I was getting it right until I'd put it at arms length and looked at it carefully and then I'd notice that I had painted the scales too big, or too randomly, or not in the right pattern or not depicting the body shape.... blah, blah, blah! It was driving me nuts and making my eyes go squiffy and my brain to mush! A couple of times I walked away completely and took a wander to try and clear my head and come back refreshed. Didn't work... so I was glad when 5.30 came and I could go home. I had had enough.. hopefully tomorrow will be more successful.
Monday, 19 March 2012
It's all about the fish
Back in work after the weekend and a few emails to catch up on - several requests for replacement or new ID signs.
One was for Arabian killifish - Aphanius dispar dispar, which due to a small shift around in the aquarium, have moved into a new and bigger tank display. The ID sign that was on their previous display was not for being backlit and was a smaller size than the rest of the aquarium due to the attributes of the tank it was kept in. It also had another species which did not move with it to the new home. So I transferred the relevant info to the bigger format on the computer, printed and trimmed it to size and put it up in the afternoon in the lightbox above their new home, with my colleague's, Anna, help once again on step ladder duty.
In the afternoon I met Mike, from the maintenance department, also in the Aquarium, to discuss the positioning of the board (for the ID signs to go on) that is to go with the new display for the goodeids. I had cut a foamex board in the morning to attach below the tank on some lovely half log cladding as a temporary measure until the proper board was cut, painted and attached to the stone wall. Mike had a heavy workload due to Easter fast approaching and being the start of the "season" everybody wants everything up together - Ship shape and Bristol fashion, naturally; so I wasn't expecting my little board to get done before Easter. However it seems that as it is a small job he may be able to fit it in, so I hung off putting up the tempoary measure until maybe later in the week when, if the proper board is not ready by then, I can go back to plan A with the temporary board.
The Sulawesi quail doves moved out of their temporary winter housing in one of the empty monkey huts near the lake and up to the outside South West Avairies, so their ID sign was brought out of the filing cabinet and put up on their new home.
Late in the afternoon I got down to my next illustration, which is of a flagtail characin - Semachilodus insignis. I transferred the pencil line drawing onto the piece of watercolour paper I painted black last week.
I thought about how I would approach this illustration for quite a while as it is a silver scaled fish reflecting many colours so the question was .... do I paint the body dark and then in a pale colour paint in each individual scale adding all the colours individually..... or do I put colour washes over a pale base colour to get all the reflected shimmering colours and then outline each individual scale in a darker colour to then go back and add high and low lights on the scales to make them "sit into" the body. After much consideration on how long and how fiddley each way of working would be or not be I plumbed for the latter approach and managed to get a good pale base coat on before it was toime to go home. This will dry and harden over night nicely so that it is more robust to paint over tomorrow without too much danger of paint lifting as I apply more.
One was for Arabian killifish - Aphanius dispar dispar, which due to a small shift around in the aquarium, have moved into a new and bigger tank display. The ID sign that was on their previous display was not for being backlit and was a smaller size than the rest of the aquarium due to the attributes of the tank it was kept in. It also had another species which did not move with it to the new home. So I transferred the relevant info to the bigger format on the computer, printed and trimmed it to size and put it up in the afternoon in the lightbox above their new home, with my colleague's, Anna, help once again on step ladder duty.
In the afternoon I met Mike, from the maintenance department, also in the Aquarium, to discuss the positioning of the board (for the ID signs to go on) that is to go with the new display for the goodeids. I had cut a foamex board in the morning to attach below the tank on some lovely half log cladding as a temporary measure until the proper board was cut, painted and attached to the stone wall. Mike had a heavy workload due to Easter fast approaching and being the start of the "season" everybody wants everything up together - Ship shape and Bristol fashion, naturally; so I wasn't expecting my little board to get done before Easter. However it seems that as it is a small job he may be able to fit it in, so I hung off putting up the tempoary measure until maybe later in the week when, if the proper board is not ready by then, I can go back to plan A with the temporary board.
The Sulawesi quail doves moved out of their temporary winter housing in one of the empty monkey huts near the lake and up to the outside South West Avairies, so their ID sign was brought out of the filing cabinet and put up on their new home.
Late in the afternoon I got down to my next illustration, which is of a flagtail characin - Semachilodus insignis. I transferred the pencil line drawing onto the piece of watercolour paper I painted black last week.
I thought about how I would approach this illustration for quite a while as it is a silver scaled fish reflecting many colours so the question was .... do I paint the body dark and then in a pale colour paint in each individual scale adding all the colours individually..... or do I put colour washes over a pale base colour to get all the reflected shimmering colours and then outline each individual scale in a darker colour to then go back and add high and low lights on the scales to make them "sit into" the body. After much consideration on how long and how fiddley each way of working would be or not be I plumbed for the latter approach and managed to get a good pale base coat on before it was toime to go home. This will dry and harden over night nicely so that it is more robust to paint over tomorrow without too much danger of paint lifting as I apply more.
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Hopeful roulrouls
This morning the text for the new goodeid tank was ok'd, so I could add it to the ID I put together earlier in the week. This made it the sign too big, so I split the text off onto another ID then printed them both and after trimming to size, laminated them. As the new tank/display has been put in the entrance to the Aquarium, there is no lightbox or other ID holder ready to put the signs into. So I calculated measurements for a board to hold both IDs and filled out a maintenance job request form with the details for size,colour and countersunk screw holes etc. The signs are ready... now I just need to wait until the board is attached to the wall (possibly attached to batons) above the tank before I can put them up.
I replaced a few birds IDs in our tropical bird aviary, which is indoors. The IDs are fiddly to replace so I was a little while in there struggling with proceedings. As I crouched to the floor, cutting loose laminate off of some signs to tidy them up, a male roulroul partridge wandered slowly up to me, making this wonderful high pitched whistle-like call. I was careful not to make any sudden moves and he gradually got braver; I think he was hopeful that I might have food. His calls and interest drew in some of the other individuals of this species in the aviary... so I ended up with 4 males and 3 females gathered around me whistling quietly to each other and looking at me with great curiousity. They are such cute little birds, quite endearing. Eventually they wandered off as I got on with my work and was obviously not about to offer them any food. Cupboard love!
Walking back to the studio from the aviary I saw our three baby meerkats out in the sunshine with the rest of the troop. They were running around scrabbling at the sand soil and between the adults with their little tails held jauntingly upwards. Such little sweeties.
I got round to some painting today, late this afternoon.... well, sort of. As I have as good as caught up on computer work/replacing IDs etc I can get back to my next illustration; which is to be a flagtail characin - another fish. I had done the drawing at the end of Feb, so today I could get on with preparing the painting surface; 300grm watercolour paper. The paint I use is gouache and I mix my own black (adding alizarin crimson and ultramarine to lamp black to "liven" it up) in enough quantity for several fish illustration backgrounds. Being gouache I can just add water to reconstitute the paint when it has dried, back to a lovely thick yoghurty consistency. I dampened the paper and with one of my bigger brushes coated the paper with the lovely rich gloopy black paint and then left it to dry. Not a very exciting bit of painting, it has to be said, but now it's ready for the more exciting stuff.
Then I carefully traced my drawing; ready to transfer to the black background when it is completely dry and hardened off. But that will be next week now as I have come to the end of my working "week" at the zoo. I only work Monday to Wedsnesdays.
I replaced a few birds IDs in our tropical bird aviary, which is indoors. The IDs are fiddly to replace so I was a little while in there struggling with proceedings. As I crouched to the floor, cutting loose laminate off of some signs to tidy them up, a male roulroul partridge wandered slowly up to me, making this wonderful high pitched whistle-like call. I was careful not to make any sudden moves and he gradually got braver; I think he was hopeful that I might have food. His calls and interest drew in some of the other individuals of this species in the aviary... so I ended up with 4 males and 3 females gathered around me whistling quietly to each other and looking at me with great curiousity. They are such cute little birds, quite endearing. Eventually they wandered off as I got on with my work and was obviously not about to offer them any food. Cupboard love!
Walking back to the studio from the aviary I saw our three baby meerkats out in the sunshine with the rest of the troop. They were running around scrabbling at the sand soil and between the adults with their little tails held jauntingly upwards. Such little sweeties.
I got round to some painting today, late this afternoon.... well, sort of. As I have as good as caught up on computer work/replacing IDs etc I can get back to my next illustration; which is to be a flagtail characin - another fish. I had done the drawing at the end of Feb, so today I could get on with preparing the painting surface; 300grm watercolour paper. The paint I use is gouache and I mix my own black (adding alizarin crimson and ultramarine to lamp black to "liven" it up) in enough quantity for several fish illustration backgrounds. Being gouache I can just add water to reconstitute the paint when it has dried, back to a lovely thick yoghurty consistency. I dampened the paper and with one of my bigger brushes coated the paper with the lovely rich gloopy black paint and then left it to dry. Not a very exciting bit of painting, it has to be said, but now it's ready for the more exciting stuff.
Then I carefully traced my drawing; ready to transfer to the black background when it is completely dry and hardened off. But that will be next week now as I have come to the end of my working "week" at the zoo. I only work Monday to Wedsnesdays.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Barbs and doradids
The pearl eartheater was still waiting for me when I got in this morning and after a spell in Photoshop, finishing off the background colour reset, I added the illustration to an ID file that had been sat quietly in the confines of my Mac's inner space. Along with the eartheater there are two other species on this ID and they were joining the rank of about a dozen other species that are all in the same huge landscape tank in the aquarium.
Late in the afternoon Anna (one of the graphic designers) and I went across to the aquarium to put the ID up in one of the lightboxes. It takes two because one person has to stand on the step ladder base to hold it steady whilst the other scales the heights. It's all about the dreaded "Health and Safety" regulations we have to abide by... however, it does give Anna a break from the computer for a short while.
We met Jonny, assistant curator of the Aquarium, and he was holding a meanly hooked barb. It had just been removed by the on-site veterinary team from one of the black doradid catfish (aka ripsaw catfish) Oxydoras niger. The freshwater stingrays it shares its huge tank with, shed these barbs and one of the doradids managed to get it lodged up through its mouth and face after picking it up off the bottom of the tank. The fish is a pretty large beasty and probably took two or three keepers to catch and carry it, so it was quite an operation of logistics as well as surgically. We saw the fish in the tank, post op, sat on the bottom being cleaned by a couple of suckermouth catfish. We thought it was sweet of them to give it a little TLC at such a time!!
Jonny assured us the fish would be fine in no time at all. The barb was about 3" long with a slight curve upwards. Along two thirds of its length ran the tiny hooks on either side. Running my fingers along these in one direction from the tip to the base they felt smooth, but in the other direction the hooks were sharp and caught the skin on my fingers easily. Quite a nasty little weapon, but fascinating.
Generally it was another day of to-ing and fro-ing between the computer, laminator and putting ID's on display. I compiled an ID with the info for a new seahorse species ready for when it needs to go up, there were five bird ID's that needed replacing due to looking shabby from wear and tear two of which were completed and put on their respective aviaries today and the last three held up from being finished because we had run out of the metal eyelets that are needed for the particular way the ID's are displayed in the aviary they are in.
So a quick jaunt out of the zoo grounds was called for to a local craft shop to get a couple of packets of said eyelets. These will be hammered into place, through the laminate the ID's will be sealed in. A job for tomorrow.
Pearl eartheater - Geophagus brassiliensisi
Late in the afternoon Anna (one of the graphic designers) and I went across to the aquarium to put the ID up in one of the lightboxes. It takes two because one person has to stand on the step ladder base to hold it steady whilst the other scales the heights. It's all about the dreaded "Health and Safety" regulations we have to abide by... however, it does give Anna a break from the computer for a short while.
We met Jonny, assistant curator of the Aquarium, and he was holding a meanly hooked barb. It had just been removed by the on-site veterinary team from one of the black doradid catfish (aka ripsaw catfish) Oxydoras niger. The freshwater stingrays it shares its huge tank with, shed these barbs and one of the doradids managed to get it lodged up through its mouth and face after picking it up off the bottom of the tank. The fish is a pretty large beasty and probably took two or three keepers to catch and carry it, so it was quite an operation of logistics as well as surgically. We saw the fish in the tank, post op, sat on the bottom being cleaned by a couple of suckermouth catfish. We thought it was sweet of them to give it a little TLC at such a time!!
Jonny assured us the fish would be fine in no time at all. The barb was about 3" long with a slight curve upwards. Along two thirds of its length ran the tiny hooks on either side. Running my fingers along these in one direction from the tip to the base they felt smooth, but in the other direction the hooks were sharp and caught the skin on my fingers easily. Quite a nasty little weapon, but fascinating.
Generally it was another day of to-ing and fro-ing between the computer, laminator and putting ID's on display. I compiled an ID with the info for a new seahorse species ready for when it needs to go up, there were five bird ID's that needed replacing due to looking shabby from wear and tear two of which were completed and put on their respective aviaries today and the last three held up from being finished because we had run out of the metal eyelets that are needed for the particular way the ID's are displayed in the aviary they are in.
So a quick jaunt out of the zoo grounds was called for to a local craft shop to get a couple of packets of said eyelets. These will be hammered into place, through the laminate the ID's will be sealed in. A job for tomorrow.
Monday, 12 March 2012
Beastly printer strikes again
This morning I arrived thinking I would be getting one illustration checked so that I could get on with finishing off the ID sign it was to go on. However, I had an email from the assistant curator of the Aquarium, Jonny, asking for a species to be added to one sign and a new sign to be made for a display he has almost finished setting up and hope to have the fish in and on show later in the week.
I did the revised ID first; this was a simple matter of adding another species (freshwater angelfish - Pterophyllum scalare) to an existing sign. So I had only to open the file on the computer and drop in the relevent details and illustration before printing it. But the printer had other ideas and today decided it wouldn't print an Quark A3 file (which it did quite happily last month when I did the original sign that I had just added to) without a fight. It has been a troublesome beast of a printer and very fickle on what it will and won't print and when.
So I spent most of the day converting the template I use for the Aquarium ID signs from a Quark design file to an Illustrator one. I have been avoiding doing this for a while . . but as I was in no mood to play around with the confounded awkward piece of technology for the next hour or so (as I have in the past) I resigned myself to having to just get on and do it. I'm not a graphic designer so it took me longer than it would have done for either of my colleagues, who are both graphic designers, but on the up side it was good practise. For as well as painting the animal identification illustrations I also compile the finished sign on the computer putting in common and scientific names, sometimes a map with distribution marked, text about the species and sometimes also a logo indicating whether it's on a breeding programme or as in the case of the Aquarium - showing whether it is a carnivore, herbivore, omnivore etc. Before printing, laminating and then usually I put it up on display - up ladders, climbing over fences etc to do so.
The second job for Jonny was the sign for a new tank that has been set up for goodeid's - a family of endangered fish found in only in Mexico. So using my newly set up template I compiled the new ID sign for the 4 species that are going on show - Rainbow, blue-tailed, butterfly and goldbreast. Strictly speaking this isn't a completely new sign. The butterfly goodeids have been on show (and therefore have had a sign) for some years. However they are being moved into the new tank and more species of goodeids added, so a new sign is required. On the old goodeid sign there was a body of text explaining the importance of the fish and how it was thought to be extinct until some were discovered in a spring that fed a pool. This needs to be reworded to be relevant for all the fish on show in the tank, once the Education department have checked over the new body of text, I can add it to the sign and get it printed off and up on display. Luckily of the 3 new species, it is a relief to know that I have already painted two - the rainbow and blue-tailed (these were done for another display a few years ago), leaving one, the goldbreast, to be added to my jobs list.
Last jobs of the day were to put up the revised ID with the angelfish in the relevant lightbox in the Aquarium and get the illustration I finished last week, a pearl eartheater - Geophagus brassilensisi (fish) checked by Jonny, to make sure it was correct. He was happy with the painting so I then scanned it into the computer and started work on colour adjusting the background of the illustration.
I do this because although I paint the fish onto a black background - to get a really solid black needed for a backlit sign (which the Aquarium signs were) I need to reset the background colour in photoshop. I finished the day, at 5.30pm, part way through that process; so tomorrow, no doubt, I shall be continuing with that.
I did the revised ID first; this was a simple matter of adding another species (freshwater angelfish - Pterophyllum scalare) to an existing sign. So I had only to open the file on the computer and drop in the relevent details and illustration before printing it. But the printer had other ideas and today decided it wouldn't print an Quark A3 file (which it did quite happily last month when I did the original sign that I had just added to) without a fight. It has been a troublesome beast of a printer and very fickle on what it will and won't print and when.
So I spent most of the day converting the template I use for the Aquarium ID signs from a Quark design file to an Illustrator one. I have been avoiding doing this for a while . . but as I was in no mood to play around with the confounded awkward piece of technology for the next hour or so (as I have in the past) I resigned myself to having to just get on and do it. I'm not a graphic designer so it took me longer than it would have done for either of my colleagues, who are both graphic designers, but on the up side it was good practise. For as well as painting the animal identification illustrations I also compile the finished sign on the computer putting in common and scientific names, sometimes a map with distribution marked, text about the species and sometimes also a logo indicating whether it's on a breeding programme or as in the case of the Aquarium - showing whether it is a carnivore, herbivore, omnivore etc. Before printing, laminating and then usually I put it up on display - up ladders, climbing over fences etc to do so.
The second job for Jonny was the sign for a new tank that has been set up for goodeid's - a family of endangered fish found in only in Mexico. So using my newly set up template I compiled the new ID sign for the 4 species that are going on show - Rainbow, blue-tailed, butterfly and goldbreast. Strictly speaking this isn't a completely new sign. The butterfly goodeids have been on show (and therefore have had a sign) for some years. However they are being moved into the new tank and more species of goodeids added, so a new sign is required. On the old goodeid sign there was a body of text explaining the importance of the fish and how it was thought to be extinct until some were discovered in a spring that fed a pool. This needs to be reworded to be relevant for all the fish on show in the tank, once the Education department have checked over the new body of text, I can add it to the sign and get it printed off and up on display. Luckily of the 3 new species, it is a relief to know that I have already painted two - the rainbow and blue-tailed (these were done for another display a few years ago), leaving one, the goldbreast, to be added to my jobs list.
Last jobs of the day were to put up the revised ID with the angelfish in the relevant lightbox in the Aquarium and get the illustration I finished last week, a pearl eartheater - Geophagus brassilensisi (fish) checked by Jonny, to make sure it was correct. He was happy with the painting so I then scanned it into the computer and started work on colour adjusting the background of the illustration.
I do this because although I paint the fish onto a black background - to get a really solid black needed for a backlit sign (which the Aquarium signs were) I need to reset the background colour in photoshop. I finished the day, at 5.30pm, part way through that process; so tomorrow, no doubt, I shall be continuing with that.
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