Monday 25th
This week was mostly about painting the European souslik Spermophilus citellus but I had a few other little jobs that came up too, creating a handful of nice little breaks away from the illustration to stretch my legs and get some of that bracing cold fresh air. This week has been another cold one with bitter winds chilling the temperature below the average for this time of year. Although Spring is trying to push its head above the cold snap, it is struggling and all the frog spawn we had back in February and early March has disappeared, killed by the frost and ice and eaten by the ducks, no doubt. The trees are starting to break bud and some spring blossoms are showing their first hint of colour.
Last week I had noticed a couple of ID's that were curling on the Flamingo Paddock ID sign holders, so I went up and added some more double sided tape to hold them down temporarily until next week when I do my next ID sweep. Whilst in the paddock I checked the ruff plumage... again I found only one bird so when I returned to the studio I emailed the bird section to ask about the status of the ruff. The answer I got was we now have only one ruff, a male, and he will be going on to another collection or off show probably this year as they want to concentrate on the redshank and build them up in the collection. So I shall continue to keep an eye on the ruff for now, as he may still change over to his breeding plumage before he gets moved on.
Another little job waiting on my desk was a pile of printed signs, which Phil had left for me to attach velcro strips ready for them to go up around the grounds. Once that was done I then got down to drawing the souslik.
I don't really like to draw or illustrate an animal without having seen it first, but sometimes that is not always possible at the time the illustration needs to be done. I have a list of species waiting to be illustrated but this species gets to jump the queue, as it is deemed to be a more 'visible and prominent species to the public' and likely to be a popular animal to view so it gets prioritised ahead of turtles and lizards (which are the ones waiting to be done). This is sad in many ways but it's the way of the public.. a cute furry rodent is going to be noticed more that a turtle or lizard to the majority of the visitors. So it has to have its ID sign quicker. As these animals aren't even in yet but likely to arrive in a few weeks I couldn't actually view a living example to get a feel for them and take my own reference. Relying instead on photos gathered from the internet I printed a sheet of images giving me a selection to do my drawing by. I can't copy one photo straight off the internet as that may infringe a company or photographer's copyright. So I gather a selection to take bits from to make a new posture.
In this case the main part of the posture comes from the largest photo on this page and then I raise a paw and put the tail in a different position to make it not a copy of the image. Also I will use other images to get the colouration of the animal, rather than copying the photo slavishly.
At the end of the day I cut a piece of watercolour paper (33 0 x 205mm)and transfer the outline to it with tracing paper. Then I start playing with the background to imply grassland... I had several attempts before I settled on a light background with just a hint of grasses implied.. this was mostly done by wet into wet layering of colour.
Tuesday 26th
After reading information about the animal I decided to have the souslik standing on soil. They burrow in soils that are light and easily diggable, to build their complex burrow systems; so I used the main image on my photo sheet, as my point of reference also for the ground. But how was I going to approach doing the soil effect?
I started off by painting the area with a darkish purple brown. On to this I stipple a neutral 'light stone' colour as randomly as I can whilst covering almost all the base colour.
I am going to build up the soil effect with layers of stippling and colour. Gradually lightening the colour as I progress with each layer. As I progress I also watch how the random placing of the stippling creates light and dark areas and I build on these to create dips and shadows in the soil.
I keep building the colours on top of each other without completely obliterating the under colours... this adds depth and texture. I also get extra texture but occasionally applying the colour with a dry brush stroke, getting a fineness to blend the stippling brush marks together.
In this close up done towards the end of the process you can see the stipples and grainy effects of the brush marks. I also added in some larger 'lumps' of light colour to imply small stones and added shadow to the right hand side, again trying to be random and not think too orderly.
In all I put on about 10 or 11 layers of colour. I finished the soil off by adding some flicks and lines to imply twiggy bits and pieces and also added one little plant shoot in the bottom left of the illustration. This just breaks up the expanse of soil and adds another element of colour.
With the soil done I now start thinking of the animal. First I need to 'sit' it onto the soil so I put a wash of green blue as the shadow. Painting over the soil but having the wash transparent so that the grains still show through. Over this 'shadow patch' I then put another wash of blue purple (once the other colour is completely dry) and add more strength to the colour where the animal's body touches the ground. I finally put in some 'darks' immediately under the animals feet and body and add a few little dark and light highlights to the shadow area to 'lift' the texture.
Also today I put in a replacement ID sign for the golden-headed lion tamarins as their ID sign went missing. Luckily I didn't have to print and laminate a sign as I already had one ready in my file cabinet.
Some more dino stuff went up today. We have a small room that is used as a 'kids party room'. It can be hired out for birthdays and other kiddie celebrations and has a mural of cartoon animals around the walls (painted by Emily Trotter) and also a few cartoon dinosaurs which are the creations of another zoo employee, Sam Church. He does fabulous illustrations and a number of his dino creations have been printed onto banner material to adhere to the windows of the party room. This not only gives the room an enclosed private feel but also adds a great display of decoration to the room. This is just one of the banners.
These banners are printed and made so that they stick to the windows.. applying them to the glass takes patience and care to avoid getting 'bubbles' under the surface. These pockets of air need to be smoothed out or when necessary 'stabbed' with a scaple to create a hole for the air to escape and the material to be pressed smooth and flat. In all there were four windows with top and bottom sections to apply. Phil and myself tackled this in the morning - Phil placing the banners and myself smoothing out the bubbles.
Wednesday 27th
Today I painted the souslik itself. . As I mentioned in Monday's entry I used other images to get the colouration. I went back to the internet to look at the array of images and picked out those that suited the colouration I wanted. It is difficult when you haven't seen the animal to get this spot on, but after talking with the Simon, one of the keepers on the mammal section who is my contact for this species, the plan was that I would paint it as best I could and then when the animals arrive I can make alterations to the illustration where necessary. One of the things I had queried was the tail.. on some images there are noticeably white tips to the hairs at the end of the tail, although not enough to say that the tail had a white tip. Was this an individual trait or a regional one? An age or sex difference related variation within the species? I could find nothing to answer that question so that is one thing that will have to wait until I see the animals themselves.
An animal's colouration can look different for many reasons.. such as being in varying light conditions, the environment it is in or the age or sex of the individual... I looked through the reference photo's I had now gathered and decided I would base my illustration mostly on the animal in the top left corner. The other photo's would give me a reminder of the variations.
Then I start on the wee beastie... I block in a base colour or two adding a basic indication of some features like the eye, ear and mouth and then I started with the area in shadow.
Then I work on laying in the foundation of the fur direction and incorporate the slight banding that appears on the back.
Then I just gradually build up the fur layers with colour and direction.
I finished the illustration by late afternoon and arranged to meet Simon for him to check it. He was happy with it, so I can go ahead with the rest of the process in making the ID sign. Back in the studio I scanned in the image and opening the mammal ID sign template made a new document for this species adding the common and scientific names and the illustration. I am waiting on the Education section to do the text for this species, so once I have that I can complete the sign and print it ready to put up when the animals arrive.
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