11th - 14th

Mon 11th

This morning I went across to collect my new zoo trousers that I had ordered last week from Roger, who works as part of the Front Of House team, and then picked up the mail from the Central Office on the way back. On my little excursion I noticed that the dinosaurs have returned! Several dinos were sitting near to where they were to be positioned, some were partially unwrapped, so they have only arrived in the last day or so I should think. 

I also noticed that there were some bird ID's missing off one of the aviaries, luckily there was a keeper on hand who explained that a few birds had been moved around. So back in the studio I printed off two new ID signs for the white winged wood duck - Cairina scutulata, trimmed, laminated and trimmed them again to size before heading back out to put them up on the aviary in question. Whilst I was out I headed round to the Flamingo Paddock to check on the male ruff (still no change although his feather colouration around the neck is changing slightly). On coming out of the paddock I noticed that the two Asiatic lion cubs, Ketan and Kamran were out enjoying some playtime in the sun. I had brought my camera to take a few pics of the dinosaurs and whatever else might be interesting too.

The two boys were quite boisterous and the bigger of the two, Ketan, was busy 'hunting' the couple of small children who were watching them with great delight. Apparently this his favourite game at the moment. They are about 4 months old now and are looking like a pair of happy playful, mischievous cubs.

Whilst I was out with the camera I wandered on round to Bug World to check again on the mural for water damage just in case any wood had taken its time to show signs of water invasion. Luckily all still seems to be ok. But whilst I was there I saw that in one of the tanks a number of the invertebrates were out in better view so I took photo's of bristleworms, brittlestars and the hermit crab.

Walking through Bug World I took a quick look at all the exhibits a) to make sure nothing new was on display that I needed to know about and b) just because I like looking at all the animals. I found a new one..... a huntsman spider who was donated to the zoo after being discovered in luggage by some people after returning from their travels. Glad I didn't find this beastie... although harmless it sure looks like the proverbial 'scary spider' of my nightmares. Still... I do find them fascinating to look at and them being enclosed safely out of reach, behind glass, makes that easier! 

Huntsman spider

When I came out of Bug World I passed another of the dinosaurs, one with feathers this time and at its feet a male blackbird was foraging in the newly positioned soil for any tasty morsels disturbed by the gardener's work. I couldn't resist the picture of a bird at the huge feet of one of its ancestors.

Back to the studio to sort out the photos and start work on the next illustration... the flounder. I mixed up some more black (I always make my own mix of Lamp black, Ultramarine and Alizarin crimson) and after damping a piece of Saunders watercolour paper (300grms) I applied the colour to it. Onto this I then traced the outline of the flounder and applied a base coat of a neutral light colour. It's hard to describe what colour it is being neither grey, beige, fawn or pale green... but a mix of all three.

Tuesday 12th

Most of today was spent painting the flounder. I had a break later in the day to go over to the Feed the Lorikeet aviary to remove the white winged wood duck ID's (they had been moved to another aviary - which I did the signs for yesterday,) I could not use the same signs as they are presented in different ways. The Feed the Lorikeet aviary was closed to the public but staff were working in there trying to clear out the volumous build up of sludge in the aviaries pond. The water pump had failed (hence the moving of the ducks out to another aviary) and whilst the ducks were out and the pond very low in water level the decision was made to clear the sludge. Not a nice job, especially on such a bitter cold day! They were having problems pumping the gunk out as the pipes kept getting blocked with all the stones, twigs and other debris in the sludge. I removed my signs and left them to it.

The flounder was tricky to do, due to my unhelpful reference pictures, but I was able to glean enough from them and my own observations of the fish to finish the illustration. I finished late in the day again and it was too late to get it checked by the animal section so that'll wait until tomorrow.

Flounder

Wednesday 13th

Contacted Jonny from the Aquarium not long after I got in and arranged to go over to get the painting checked. Jonny was happy with the illustration so I was able to go back and start the process of colour correcting the black background to 'pure' black on the computer. After scanning the image in I drew around the outside of the fish with a red pencil tool on the computer... this took some time as I had a lot of spines to go between carefully and I was able to 'tidy' them up a bit too..... such small fiddly details my eyes find hard to do on the painting these days. So it's handy that we use digital images for our signage, I can do such corrections a whole lot easier!

Once I had drawn completely around the fish I then converted all the back background to red before then selecting it all and converting it to the 'pure' black.  It's easier to use another colour first as I can see much more easily where I have been... drawing black onto black (even if the blacks are of different values) has a tendency to strain the eyes.

Once that was done it was placed in a folder on the computer and the image added to the ID sign for the flounder. It won't be printed out yet as there is another species on the same ID, still to be done... my next project..... the Shanny - Lipophrys pholis.

So to prepare for my next illustration of shanny, I check the ref pictures I had gathered for it so far... again same problem as I have had with the seahorse and flounder recently... dark tanks, secretive fish... not great photos!

So I do an internet image search... very frustratingly so many images... but just of the head. I had shots of the head I needed tail, body , dorsal fin and the finage on the ventral (underneath) side of the body. In the end I found a few pictures of the bits I needed reference for but it took me a very long time searching, putting in different names... the common names (it has several) and the scientific name. With each name I get mostly the same images but one or two different ones. In the end I printed 4 A4 sheets... each holding about 7 - 9 pictures.

Using these I was able to get a drawing together for the fish. getting the ref for the underside of the fish was the trickiest as I found just three images of a shanny NOT lying on a rock and therefore showing the fins underneath and only one of these showed the fins splayed so that I could count the rays to get that right. Hard work!

I went back down to the Seal and Penguin Coasts exhibit to try and get some more photo's of the actual fish and although I saw two... they were both in very dark areas and one was only showing his head. SO not much help! However... the one that was just showing its head was a male as he was very dark, almost black in colouration and his upper lip was white-ish. I took a photo using a tripod...

When I got back to the studio, looked at the image on screen and brought up the light levels I noticed the pale dots on the surface of his hiding place behind him. Back on the internet to check some info.. were these eggs? I checked several sites and yes the male guards the eggs and the eggs are stuck to a surface such as rocks in a crevice. I contacted Jonny in the Aquarium via email with the pic attached... as its such a dark area I didn't know whether he knew they were there. He replied that they weren't there earlier that morning when he checked the tank, so he went back to retrieve them to rear them on in safety, as the male sometimes eats the eggs. 

Thursday 14th

If you are a regular reader you will know that I don't usually work Thursdays... I had some hours to make up for a day I took off recently and the All Staff Meetings had been arranged, unusually, on Thursday and Friday this time... they are usually split up to cover the first and latter parts of the week. So I chose to work this morning so that I could attend the meeting and make up some time too. I particularly wanted to be at the meeting as one of my colleagues at the zoo - Ginny, a good work friend, was celebrating her 30th year working at the zoo! The Director, Bryan, and her Line Manager, Nick, both said some words to thank Ginny for all her years of service which was lovely and she got a warm round of applause from the staff.

After the meeting, when I was back in the studio I got a call from Ginny to say there was cake to be had, but I had better be quick as it was going rapidly! So I hot-footed it across to the finance office, where Ginny works, to get some cake for a few of us who work in the Education Centre. It was delicious too!

I prepared the background for the shanny with a black coat of gouache and let that dry, I prefer to wait until the paint is several hours dry before trying to trace onto it or paint a base coat. So whilst that dried I went on the computer and started doing checks on the references I have for the next four species on my to do list. These are the Roti Island snake neck turtle, Timor Island zebra finch, great plated lizard and blue spiny lizard. All of which had photos to crop, change light and colour levels on and sort out good photos from bad. This took me to lunchtime when it was time to go home, as I was only doing a half day today.

I finish with a couple more photo's that I took at the zoo this week.

 African penguin catching the fish thrown in during a feed.

And two of our female Western lowland gorillas. The older gorilla was enjoying a carrot whilst the younger female looked on enviously.