Done for this year

Well... time has yet again flown... in many ways.  First as it is again a couple of weeks since my last post and second, as my two months away from the zoo are here again.

My last two weeks at the zoo were mostly about getting things up together before my time off came round. The changes for the Bug World IDs continues... I spent a couple of days going through each invertebrate ID document checking that everything was the same on each one, font, fonts size, colours, spacings, layers etc. Then these were backed up to the Server. The process is still ongoing and now my Colleague Anna (Graphic Designer) will be taking over the upkeep of the IDs in my absence. 

The Gorilla House opened with it's renovations to the inside area almost complete. The public can now go in and view the great new area for our gorilla family. £1 million pounds has been spent on making the inside area bigger and better for them to use. The ceiling has been highered to give more room for climbing framework and roping for them to play on and use generally. The youngsters apparently love it and make good use of the new area. Jock, our silverback, has been great during all the work and has kept calm and interested in what was happening, he also seems to like the changes. 
Part of the new area for the public is that it is completely enclosed by glass, even over head. So you can be standing beneath a gorilla!! It is very impressive to look up at Jock, see the size of his feet and hands as they rest on the glass flooring. 

Anna and I had a bit of work to do in the gorilla house before it opened, painting some of the public area walls in preparation for work that will be done later. Also I had to touch up the cut-out gorilla shape that you can compare your arm span to a gorilla's on. It had got a little marked from its time in the gorilla house and subsequent removal and storage. Once I started applying paint over the chips and scratches, I realised that the original paint had dulled off over time and the touch ups were therefore quite visible on it. So I ended up repainting all the black so that it looked lovely and shiny again, ready to go back in the public area of the house.

I didn't get very far with the giant Ghana land snail illustration.... I had hoped to finish it by the end of August but.... I miscalculated my time and suddenly found I had one week less than I thought. With the sudden influx of text's coming back from the Education folk, my time was spent sorting the IDs out with the revamp texts. So, alas, that will now have to wait until my return.

I am now having the two months off to work on my own art at home (my part-time arrangements being 9 months at the zoo, 3 months (Jan, Sept, Oct at  home)). I have a two day workshop, talk and a week's residency coming up at the beginning of September and possibly another workshop at the end of October. In between I shall be painting madly for my exhibition project that you can keep up to date on here. 

Normally my return would be the first Monday in November, this year I shall not be back, probably, until just before Christmas at the earliest. A family commitment means I have had to take a further two months off work, so fingers crossed all goes well and I can get back to the zoo by Krimbo or just after. I would also normally have January off but that would then mean I would be away for 5 months so I will defer that month off until later in the spring.

I will try and get a post or two in here during these coming months, probably showing work done previously but, especially in the last two months I am not sure how possible that will be.

Helping Anna remove Prairie Dogs from the Pointer Signs around the zoo. The prairies dogs have gone and we now have the small European version - sousliks.

Anna surveying the work to be done in the gorilla house

Simon cleaning the glass roof of the public viewing area

Anna painting into the corners

Jock is very impressive anyway, but even more so from this angle

Jock's foot print!

Me repainting the gorilla cut-out

Artist in Residence week

I shall be the Artist in Residence at Nature in Art in Gloucestershire from 10th - 15th September. Along with a selection  of work from my job at the zoo I shall also have paintings from my other role as a wildlife artist, mainly oils.

Please pop along if you can, it is a wonderful place to visit.

I have some catching up to do!

For one reason or another I have neglected to get round to posting  for the last two weeks. Naughty girl!

So here we go for a bit of a marathon catch up, I will try and keep it brief so as not to make it too long and a bit of a slog to get through.

August 5^th – 7^th

On the Monday of this week the blue spiny lizard was checked and ok’d by the animal section – no alterations to make, they were very happy with it; which was a great relief.

This illustration was done bigger than I normally work (to make it easier on my eyes) so I had to scan the painting on our little A4 scanner in two sections and then in Photoshop, ‘photomerge’ the two scans together.  This worked much better than I anticipated so I am feeling very pleased that this will mean I am not limited to doing everything now less than A4. There will be some species that will be better to do a larger scale, now that my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be for painting detail. Such a relief!

Once I had scanned and photomerged the lizard, I could then drop the picture file onto the ID document and print it ready to laminate and take over to the Reptile House. Two copies are needed as there are two separate displays – one with adults and one with juveniles.

Today is ID sweep day… I started this last week so I was able at the same time to put up the IDs I had prepared back then. On my ID Sweep’s I walk the zoo grounds and through the animal houses checking the condition of the ID signs, cleaning any that are mucky with dust, cobwebs, dirt etc. I take note of those that will need replacing due to being faded or damaged or even missing; this can take a few hours to do properly.

Once back in the studio I contact other departments like gardeners or maintenance if there are any jobs that relate to the ID signs that may need addressing such as a broken or wobbly post that IDs are attached to or plants obscuring the signs.  I also start on the computer printing the ID’s that need replacing.

On Tuesday I carried on with the printing of ID replacements and then started the process of trimming them to size, laminating them, trimming and then putting double-sided tape on the backs.  Not a great deal else was done that day, the making of the signs kept me busy enough.

On Wednesday I put up the ID’s that were ready, printed and laminated a couple more bird IDs, as well as hole-punched and put the metal eyelets in the bird IDs for Forest of Birds. At the end of the day I did a ‘top up’ ref search for the next species on my list to do… the Indian six spot ground beetle Anthia sexguttata as well as an upcoming species the iridescent shark catfish Pangasius sanitwongasei. I gathered together the images that I wanted to help me paint the beetle and was looking forward to starting it next week.

However on my way home I saw Mark, Assistant Curator - Invertebrates, and mentioned that I was about to start the beetle next week. He told me that unfortunately there would be little point now as there was only one beetle left (the others all having come to the end of their natural life span) and they had not managed to breed this difficult species (many collections have tried and failed - it would seem the exact conditions needed for this species to breed in captivity have not yet been replicated successfully). If he were to try again with another group of these impressive beetles, the animals he would end up with would be wild caught and ethically Mark did not want to pursue this. He had hoped with the group he had acquired, he could successfully get them breeding to create a sustainable captive population.

August 12^th – 14^th

Monday

There were just a few ID’s left to finish off from the ID Sweep… four mammal signs in Twilight World. Dave, Education Manager, had seen them and thought it might be best to revise the text as they were written over 10 years ago. So I printed the IDs and gave him the copies to review. These were also old Freehand documents so I carried on with the process of converting and adjusting some elements of the layout to a more up to date look. Fonts were change and made consistent along with the size of the text being enlarged to make it easier to read in the low light levels, which took me most of the day to do. I also printed another ID for the underground area of Seal and Penguin Coast for the spiny starfish and their present tank companion, an edible crab.

Tuesday

Finished off the new spiny starfish/edible crab ID and put that up in situ. Got the revised texts back from Education for the Twilight World IDs, so I was able to finish them and get them back up on show in the Forest area. Copies of the other ID’s in that area have been left with Dave to look through and revise when they can.

Wednesday

Spent most of the morning updating ID files to the server as Back-up. This week there have been discussions between Dave and myself on the process for ID requests text - a batch of recently done ID’s  (not yet on show) were shown to have a number of errors in the text or Dave wasn’t quite happy with the wording of the content. Some would need to be redone! To try and minimise this kind of problem in the future we thought about the process and revised the procedure to ensure mistakes are caught at an earlier stage – before the sign is printed.

Looking at my ‘To Do’ board I saw that my next species is a Giant Ghana land snail Achatina achatina … so I checked my ref photo’s and printed off a selection to work from. I managed to get the drawing done for this species before the end of the day, which I can start painting next week hopefully. 

Giant Ghana land snail

My list continues after the landsnail with a bird (wrinkled hornbill) and then five fish. The bird already had an ID with a photo out on display but the fish were fairly new and as yet had no ID at all. So I compiled the IDs with their information (but no picture) and following the revised procedure I sent a copy of the final sign to Jonny, Assistant Curator - Aquarium, to check the facts and common/scientific names.  

And to finish I have a few photo's taken recently at the zoo...

African penguin having a wash

The boys are growing up! 

Kemran and Ketan at about nine months old

The new batchelor group of ring-tailed lemurs enjoying a huddle.

Finally! Blue spiny lizard done!

It's been two weeks since I was working on this lizard... last week I was on holiday, but spent it working as a tutor on a 5 day batik workshop and the week before that we were all up at Wild Place putting up the signage ready for it's opening.
It was hard to get my concentration back for the lizard and it's scales. Working in the larger size has helped my eyes, but I've yet to see how well I can photomerge it. I will have to scan it in two halves, as we only have an A3 scanner, and then join the two images together. When I have done this before at home with other work I always seem to get a small shadow at the joins. So... we will see.... Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of it finished so I will post one of it next week.

Monday 29th
Today I basically worked on two things... the lizard illustration and converting a Freehand document to Illustrator for an invertebrate species. 

The lizard was, as I said, hard to get back into.... I had lost the 'flow' and struggled to get my head back round the scaling again, I did eventually and continued work on the hind leg. However, the break away did mean I came back with 'fresh eyes' and I made a few adjustments to what I had done so far. First thing that I noticed was that the female's eye seemed too far forward, so I repainted that so it sat back a little more. Other little details were added like more definition of the edges of some  of the scales and making the female's body darker, so it didn't merge so much into the male's. Again it doesn't sound a lot to do but it was the time that it took to it which made it take all day.

Tuesday 30th

The text for the black hornbill came back to me from Education; Dan had adjusted the text so that it read much better. I dropped this text onto the ID document and printed 2 copies for the aviary (one each side - if a round aviary can have sides!). Once laminated and trimmed I took them out to replace the current sign. 

On my way out of the Education building I heard the squeek of a moorhen chick, it was continuously calling. Finding that strange I looked across to the shrub up against the building, from where the sound appeared to be coming. I wondered if there was a nest in there and a new brood was what was making all the noise. An adult moorhen was walking around looking uncertain and a little confused. This made me curious so I went closer to see if there was something disturbing the nest. It was then I realised the squeeking chick was not under the shrub but down a pit in front of the building!! 

There are two grills placed over two deep 'pits' in front of the windows, these pits are part of the ventilation system of the building. Looking through the grill I could see below the sad sight of a very young moorhen chick. No wonder the parent bird was confused as to where it's chick was. I went back in the building and got Dave. Together we lifted one of the grills covering the pit and Dave climbed down. It was much deeper than I thought. Dave is nearly 6 foot and his head was well below ground level when he stood at the bottom of the pit! He handed the chick up to me and as I held it carefully, I was surprised at the very blue colour of the skin over its eyes. I put it down somewhere safe as Dave climbed back out and we replaced the grill. The parent bird had gone into the shrub out of sight. I had seen it go in, so Dave carefully placed the chick near where we thought the adult was and stepped back. The chick was calling and the parent came out and after a quick touch of beaks, led it away. The chick walked normally, no sign of injury, so hopefully it will grow successfully, with no more mishaps, into adulthood.

Our good deed for the day done, we watched it walk and run after the adult bird away into another flower bed and then we both returned to what we were doing before. I was on my way to put up some signs on the Round Aviary.

The rest of the day was again spent on the lizard, I was now on the last bit... the tail. Almost there! I'm hoping that nothing crops up that will prevent me from finishing it this week. Next week I am due to do another ID Sweep, so it would be good to get this wrapped up and out of the way before I get stuck into a sign replacement mission.

Towards the end of the day, when I had finished my main work, I popped along to see if the baby meerkats were out. It's been a while since I had seen them and as it was a lovely sunny evening and the forecast was for rain later this week, I thought I'd try and see them whilst the weather was good.

One of the new meerkat kits and some adults out enjoying the early evening sun

There was a lot of crowded activity, with practically all the meerkats focused on one thing... a cardboard tube that the keepers had put in for them. The inside had been blocked up with holes cut in the tube and some tasty morsels obviously were inside judging by the keen way the meerkats were scrabbling at the holes and tube to get in to them. It was quite a scrum with a lot of 'lying over' the tube to gain possession and even sticking paws in the holes to stop others getting in there! I took this video of them, which I had to split into two parts and lower the quality as it wouldn't upload in as one video.

Meerkat Scrum Part One

Meerkat Scrum Part Two

Wednesday 31st

Back to lizard tail today. I can feel the relief growing as I get closer to the tip of the tail and getting it finished. It's been another lizard that was not an easy job. During the day I was able to push the illustration aside.... it was done. I just had to get it checked with Tim, Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians, but he was involved in the interviewing  for the job vacancies that had come on on the Ectotherm Section. So we made arrangements that if he couldn't get to see it today, he'll check it next week.

I had an email from Carmen,a keeper from Bug World, to say that the lights were now ok for the backlit sign in Twilight World for the imperial scorpions. I had the sign ready so after a quick chat with Mark, Assistant Curator - Invertebrates, I popped up to Bug World and collected the key I would need.

The access to the sign is from the front in the public area, but the bulbs were kept at the back of the display in a little 'keeper only' room, which is why I needed a key to unlock the door to this space. Behind the door was a very tiny room.... very tiny, less of a room more of a priest hole! The floor space probably measured just over 30" square and just behind the scorpion tank back was a ledge about 30" x 20". It was just enough to get in and have an out of the way place to work whilst I prepared the sign (trimming it to fit the holder) and removing and replacing the holder's back plate, fixed with four screws. The lighting was red... so the overall effect made me feel like I was in a photographic darkroom for elves.

There were four new bulbs to fit so once the sign was in its holder, I popped the bulbs in, lighting up the underground area temporarily and then slid the sign holder into place. All done.

Before starting the next illustration (which is a beetle) I have the bi-monthly ID Sweep to do, so with the day nearly over I started this next job by doing a small section of the zoo.

On the way back to the studio I passed the okapi paddock and was pleased to see the calf out with Mum, Rubani. Last time I saw this little one it was small enough to walk under Rubani's tummy easily. Now it is a wee bit bigger as you can see from this photo! 

I enjoyed watching this boisterous youngster kicking its heels up around the paddock. Unfortunately he was too fast for me to get a good clear photo of its antics.

Back in the studio I printed 4 IDs and 11 Blanks replacements, laminating and taping them ready to put up next week.

Here are a few photo's taken recently...

A brittlestar in the new coral reef tank in Bug World

Three of this year's greater flamingo chicks.

Backlit leaves on the gibbon island

'Wild Place'

This week the Graphics team have been at Wild Place putting up all the signage.

Monday 15th
I was late in due to me not setting my alarm the night before and the cat not waking me (as is her usual trick) from about 6am. Of all the mornings!

This week Phil asked me to bring the car in so that we had our own transport up to Wild Place (formerly known as Hollywood Towers Estate), so that we had freedom of when we went and how long we were there for. For the last few months both Phil and Louise have been working on the signage for the new visitor attraction, and now it was all coming back from the printers and being delivered straight to the site. All that was needed now was for us to put it all up. This includes not only animal ID and interpretation signs but all the signs for directional posts, car park, entrance, no entry's, staff only's, information panels, push and pull's for the lemur walk through, woodland pathway etc etc. Quite a stash of boards and panels some small and easily handled, others were large and needed several people to carry and put up.

We got up to Wild Place (WP) about mid morning and checked out the shed where all the signs were stored, wrapped in bubble wrap and stacked ominously high. 

Some of the signs to go up

Unfortunately it was discovered that a printing error had occurred; the printers had left off a white layer which made the graphics and photo images stand out. As the boards onto which it was all printed was a light wood, it rendered the photo images much more dull than both Louise and Phil had designed them to be. There were a few other issues and so without getting anything done we headed back to the zoo so that Phil could contact the printers and try and sort something out. WP is opening next Monday, so that leaves no time for a major reprint of all the signs. 

Once the printers had been contacted and a few things sorted we headed back to WP again (6 miles car travel from the zoo) and got there around 12.30pm. Phil set Anna and I on the directional signs and he and Louise sorted other signs.

The first 'directionals' go up

The weather was toasty hot and we had to wear Hi-viz jackets, which are not at all helpful for trying to keep cool as they trapped and held the heat! Sturdy boots or shoes had to be worn also. Hats, cool light tops and shorts were a must.. as was carrying plenty of water about with you.

Anna and I had a dilly loaded with lots of square 'directionals' which were to be screwed to a total of 7 wood posts. Each post had a different array of squares sometimes on three or four sides. We had to work out which side of the post was coded a,b,c or d and then find the correct directionals to go on in the right order. They had to be lined up pretty accurately as if the top one was out, that just got progressively more out of line the further down the post you got. Which was a little frustrating to get right at times especially when dealing with a flat surface that was bowed in the middle so the squares wobbled as the screws went in. More frustrations were with the cordless screwdriver we had which is an old cheap one that has seen better days and quickly lost its power, so didn't have the umph at times to drive the screws in past a harder section of wood, like a knot. Oh how Anna and I cussed and swore at the stupid thing! It was consequently a much slower progress than we would have liked. By 4.30 we were only on our second post! We couldn't believe how long it was taking.

We all left the site and headed back to the zoo a short while after, hot and tired from the afternoon's work.

Back in the studio before I went home I did a little more work on creating layers in some of the new Bug World ID's.


Tuesday 16th

Before we headed back up to WP this morning I had time to amend a scientific name, on a invertebrate ID sign, and print it ready to laminate tomorrow.

Back up to WP and carrying on as we did yesterday with Anna And I on the directionals. There is a lot of work going on up there and many workmen, trucks, tractors, diggers etc moving around. It looks a long way off being ready in time, but somehow these things always seem to get pulled out of a hat at the last minute. 

The 'Model Village' - the visitor centre with shop, cafe etc still with much work to be done on it

Anna and I caught up with the two guys, Mike and Martin, who were cementing in the wood posts ahead of us. So Phil gave us some ID signs to put up for the zebra, eland and pygmy goats. 

A completed post showing two of the three sides.

The photo for Blackhorse Wood is one of mine.

Again the day was spent in the scorching sun, walking back and forth over the site between the shed where the signage was stored and where the signs were going up. We were in the swing of it more now and Louise joined Anna and myself as we put up various signs around the Secret Congo section. Louise doing some precarious climbing up high fences to get a banner cable-tied in place. 

For the most part I felt unhappy that I was not able to do as much as I wished... I had a frozen shoulder last year and although I am now in the pain free recovery phase.... my wearing of a rucksack and carrying bags getting the train to and from work for a couple of month had aggravated my shoulder which is now pretty much sore all the time and obviously very troublesome to use for anything requiring height, pressure, strength etc. So Anna insisted on doing the bulk of the work and I acted as her assistant handing her signs, screws etc, which didn't make me feel very good and pretty useless!

We had a short lunch break by the sensory foot trail... Anna and Louise tried it out quickly. The glass seemed the most scary! 

Anna and Louise trying out the Sensory Foot Trail

We finished about 4.30 and headed back to the zoo.


Wednesday 17th

After laminating the invertebrate sign and taking it up to Bug World first thing this morning I was dismayed to be told that the scientific name was still wrong. I had changed one part but not another! So I had to go back to the computer change the spelling again, reprint and laminate! Got that done before Phil, Anna and myself headed up to WP. No Louise today as she doesn't work Wednesdays but she will be there Thursday and Friday to help Phil with the last of the signage.

Another long hot tiring day at WP. We seemed to have got a good proportion of the signs up. First one this morning was the main entrance sign... This was not as tricky as we had thought and we managed between the three of us to get the two panels in place for this sign... and then we covered it, so that people didn't see it and think it was already open.

The main entrance sign before it was screwed into its final position

Anna was not fairing well in the heat, she had had enough, really, by mid afternoon. But she gritted her teeth and pressed on. AT last we were able to finish off the directional posts.. Mike and Martin having cemented in the last two as we waited. All around there is a hive of frantic activity as zoo staff and contract workers hurry to get the last of the jobs done. I can't wait to see it all done and finished and accepting visitors.

The ceremonial photo of the last 'directional' being screwed into place.

The highlights for me of this week was seeing the two yearling eland males. They were in the holding paddock on Monday but out in the main grass paddock on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Eland

They look magnificent, yet they still have a lot of growth and bulking up to do, as they mature in to the largest antelope species. The Chapman's zebra arrived Tuesday and Wednesday... they weren't yet out in the grass paddock but looked eager to be so. The pygmy goats were very cute but we didn't see the lemurs (they were shut in after arriving on Wednesday), the helmeted guinea fowl have yet to arrive, but the okapi looked great in the dappled shade of their paddock. 

Female okapi

Phil and Louise still had quite a bit to get done for the Thursday and Friday. I won't find out how it has all gone until I get back to the zoo in a week's time. I have next week booked off as holiday as I am teaching a 5 day batik workshop in Gloucester.

I'm eager to know how it all went and to go and see Wild Place up and running.    

Catch up!

Hmmm... two weeks since my last post! Tut tut! So here's a quick recap of those two weeks... 

Monday 1st July

The morning started off with me continuing with the blue spiny lizard - Sceloporus serrifer cyanogenys. But then I had to stop as some ID work needed to be done. Anna has been busy revising the size and font for the Bug World ID's, making the ID sign bigger and replacing the text font to something more clearer to read, but still with the handwritten feel about it. In the process some of the ID's that previously had a lot of text had to have the wording thinned down and one of these was the imperial scorpion. I realised that I would now need to change the text on the Twilight World version for this species, so that the text was the same on both ID's. As yet the lighting for the backlit sign has not yet been sorted so the ID sign is not yet in use, so that made it easier as I didn't have to fiddle with taking down and putting up the sign on display.
Also Mark sent me the revised species list for the rockpool display; the number of species has dropped, due almost entirely to the unstoppable eating machine called 'Satan'.... the velvet swimming crab that is dominating all others in the rockpool domain. Shorter species list meant I could thin down the ID panels for the display from three to two, and increase the spacing on the signs themselves so that it didn't look so cramped.  I was pleased with the result, especially as now all the remaining species have an ID photo to go with it so it looks complete. Once finished I printed and laminated both panels and took them up to Bug World to replace the others.


Tuesday 2nd
Today I spent all day painting the lizard. I am struggling a bit with this one too...but working on the larger size is definitely an improvement for my eyes. I finished the female in the background and started on the male.
This is some of the reference photo's I am using...

I have used two photo's for the female one for the head and one for the body. For the male it gets more complicated as our male is still not fully coloured up in maturity and the majority of ref pictures I took of him were last year when he had no colour at all as he was still immature. So I have photo's taken from the internet showing the colour of fully mature males. they have blue on their undersides that creep up round between the front and back legs. The back on each side has a rose tint and the throat is blue also. I'm having to guess a bit with the blue as photo's notoriously do not necessarily depict acurate colour, so I'm going for a mid ground on the references that I have and can tweek this once the keepers have seen the illustration and can guide me better on the tone of the blue from their experience with this species. So for the male I have used (so far) 5 photo's... 2 used for throat shape, 2 used for throat colour I used for the fore foot, 3 will be used for body colour and at least three for the tail. The main positional photo can be seen but I have slightly changed the head position and front foot.

Wednesday 3rd

Three of the new format Bug World ID's needed redoing as Mark (Assistant Curator - Invertebrates) pointed out several errors - two scientific names needed changing  and some text altered. When I had been up in Bug World yesterday I had noticed a display with Fregate beetles. This is a species we have had before and had not been shown on display for quite some time. It had an old style ID sign, so today I compiled a new sign for it in the new format. I ended up having to do it twice as on the first the scientific name was mis-spelt and I hadn't put the correct map on. This doesn't seem much for a days work but some of it was a bit involved and took time to do. One thing was that Anna had done the ID signs in Illustrator and she works without layers in that application. But I do work with layers and so I needed to set up layers on a new template and change some of the ID's she has already done. I felt bad changing it to layers (Anna has worked very hard on the signs) but as I shall be the one working with these signs the most, it makes sense to have it set up in a way I can work with.


Monday 8th

Back to painting the lizard. Did that for the whole day except to remove the black hornbill ID's from the three Forest of Birds 'book' displays as the birds have now been moved into the refurbished Round Aviary.
More blanks were printed and laminated, as several species are being moved around as the Round Aviary is done and birds are taken off show or moved, some spaces have appeared in the ID holders.

Tuesday 9th

Today I wasn't at work. I have swapped my days this week as I have a meeting with Dr Kate Evans of  Elephants For Africa  and so I shall be in on Thursday instead.

Wednesday 10th

The blanks I printed on Monday were put on the appropriate aviaries this morning and as I was doing that I saw Nigel (Curator of Birds) who let me know that they have just put in some Roulroul partridge in with the wrinkled hornbills who are also now in the Round Aviary. For the former I just printed off two copies of their ID from the computer and the latter's ID sign was not yet complete. So I finished off that, but had to double check some of the text with Nigel first. This called into question some text on the black hornbill's ID so that had to go back to Education to check.
I had two more species ID's to remove from the Forest of Birds, which meant I had to do some more reprinting as the ID's are back to back in a page format presented like a book. So for one species to be removed, the whole page has to come out, which means taking out a species that doesn't need to be taken out. I reprinted the ID's of two species that are to remain so that they can go back in the 'books' on display.

Finally at around 4.30pm I could get back to painting the lizard!

Thursday 11th

In the morning I was painting the lizard, progress is slow but steady. I am making sure I get frequent eye breaks as I don't want my eyes going fuzzy like they did last time I did a lizard that was a strain.

In the afternoon I had some laminating to do for Phil for the Splash area and Wild Place, which I then delivered to the main office. On the way back as I entered the small yard at the side of the education building I saw that Dave had two of the ferrets out for a bit of enrichment. Standing close by to keep them out of mischief and from going where they shouldn't he lets them run loose, investigating all the nooks and crannies, flower pots, stacks of equipment and the bits and bobs that have accumalated. My favourite of the ferrets was one of the ones that was out, Elf - she has the polecat markings. She's a bit of a character. Dave was barefooted and I question the sense of this with two ferrets on the loose. He laughed it off and said, 'Oh they won't bite'. I walked to the door stopping to say hi to Elf. She ran up to me (aw, how sweet was that) and stretched up my bare leg looking up at me with her sparkly eyes. 'Don't you go up my trousers.' I laughed with a little trepidation as I had crop trousers on that were cut wide. Elf promptly turned her head and sank her teeth into the skin on my shin! And then ran away all bouncy and excited. Bless her! I looked down, just a scratch, no problem  - it wasn't a vicious bite, as Dave said she was just a little too excited.

Back in the studio... as the hornbills (wrinkled and black) were now on show, having spent a day or two indoors to get used to their new surroundings, I needed to get the ID for the wrinkled up on the aviary. The black's had already been done and were already put up. I checked with education... the text for the wrinkled was fine, but the black's needed checking still. So I could now finish and print the wrinkled's ID and get that laminated and up on show along with the roulroul partridge ID.

As is usual of late, here are some photo's taken over the last two weeks at the zoo...

A new beetle sculpture was installed near the entrance to Bug World

I think this is the stegoaurus... looking great in amongst the planting.

I saw the fish being fed by a visitor one day and they were coming out of the water and onto the stony lake edge to get at the food. A mallard was literally stepping on fish to get its share too.

Our two North American river otters enjoying the sunshine and a spot of mutual grooming.

I have been told on a few occasions over the years what this extraordinary plant is called, but I keep forgetting!! It smells quite rancid.... the flies love it!

Male Palawan peacock pheasant

The gorgeous plumage of the back of a male Palawan peacock pheasant.

The twin ring-tailed lemur babies cling to Mum

Yellow mongoose waiting near the door of their enclosure, very alert. It must be near feeding time!

Spiny blue lizard start

Monday 24th
It was my birthday at the weekend and so as somewhat expected I came in to find my desk decorated. This happens to most staff in the Learning Department for their birthday... 

This week I get properly started on the blue spiny lizard; I went up for another look at them and took a few more pictures which I then uploaded to the computer sorted, resized, cropped, adjusted and placed another group on an A4 document to print as reference. We had problems with our printer this morning... it refused to take up any of the double sided paper that Anna needed to be printed for a job she was doing and then it refused to take up any paper. So a lot of fiddling, resetting, gentle man-handling and frustration was spent on the darned thing. Still it wouldn't play ball... so it was switched off and 'put in the naughty corner'. We have a photocopier that we can print to but the quality is not as good as the Epson. However beggar's can't be choosers and so the photocopier stepped up to the mark and took over the few bits of printing today.

In the afternoon I started the drawing of the blue spiny lizard. I am doing the male and female but putting the female mostly behind the male so just her front legs and head are showing. Basically I just need to show a bit of the body and throat so that the comparision can be made between her and the male. The male has a blue throat and patches of blue on his sides as well as a rose sheen to his back... the female is a much duller colour with no blue. So they look different colour wise (sexual dimorphism) which is why I need to do them both.

Tuesday 25th

Finished off drawing the lizards this morning and now need to think on background setting. 

They like to  bask on rocky/wall surfaces or fence posts... to fit the shape of the picture format for this ID it needs to be oblong in composition... so I opted for a rocky surface.

Next I had a short discussion with Phil about the size of the painting. I was going to be facing the same issues I had with the great plated lizard.. small complex details on a small sized illustration. So we discussed the options... taking a photo of the finished work was out as that didn't give the quality we needed for the digital image. Painting to fit an A4 scanner was what I had done before but this was now giving me problems with some illustrations (eye strain working on small illustrations. So we discussed painting larger and then scanning in sections and photomerging them in Photoshop. This last option was opted for as a trial... if this works out better for my eyes and can be successfully joined without the shadowing that sometimes occurs, then this would be the way to go. Phil did also mention that as this was going to be a problem that continues maybe we would need to invest in an A3 scanner now.

So I start the painting at an A3 size.. which after all these years of working to A4, or less, is strange.


Wednesday 26th

Apart from changing the text on the blue spiny lizard ID sign to incorporate the fact that they are also called fence lizards... I was pretty much tied to my desk painting the rocky background. So nothing else to report...