As I walked in to work this morning, from the local train station, I had a feeling of dread creeping up on me.... how were me and the lizard going to get along this week. I wanted him finished and out of the way, but I still had the tail to do and after the trouble I had with the body last week I can't say I was looking forward to carrying on with it. Still... it had to be done so... just push on with the paint and brushes. Grit your teeth girl!
I was painting that darned lizard's tail all day.... My eyes just kept getting lost on both my illustration and the photographic references in all the lines and squares. In the end I used strips of paper to 'keep my place' on the photo and painting; it helped stop my eyes from getting confused. Wish I had thought of this last week!
I found that I wasn't happy with the plate pattern I had, as the plates kept 'going the wrong way'. So I ended up repainting the pattern by first painting out several 'bands' at a time and using the strips of paper doing one vertical 'set' at a time (rather than going horizontally as I was last week on the body) This worked better and despite several repaints and retries I eventually began making progress down the tail.
The confusion was added to on the tail as the lines of plates 'merged' at three different points on the half of the tail nearest the body. Getting these merges to work well was a fiddle, but perseverance got me there in the end.
It really felt like a 'Tah Dah' moment when I finished the tail... I sat back on my chair, stretched and gave a cheer. It was such a relief to have got that bit done and just in time before it was time to go home. I have just the two legs to do tomorrow and that would be it.... completed.
Tuesday 30th
In comparison, this morning I came in all eager... today I would finish this lizard and hopefully once checked, would be able to get the painting scanned in, sign done and out of my sight!
I worked on the legs in the morning and they were relatively easy compared to the rest of him. And then it was done... finito. Now fingers crossed (with a sense of fear) that Tim would not turn round and say I had got it wrong.
I contacted Tim (Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians) and arranged to pop across to his office to get the painting checked by him. He had not long come back from the conference where he did the presentation he was working on when I last saw him. He gave the lizard the ok and after a few mins chat, just as I was about to go he dropped in casually that it was a shame that the great plated lizards were going next week. My heart stopped. 'What?!' I almost choked. 'Well.. we might keep them til maybe July.' He grinned.... he was pulling my leg! I'm not kidding, my heart was racing... just the thought of going through all that anguish with that painting and then being told they were no longer going to be on show ...well I felt crushed, dismayed - totally disheartened.. until I realised he was joking. I saw the funny side though, and it was just what I needed after the intensity of the job. It was a few minutes before my heart slowed down... it was just such a dreadful thought.
Back in the studio I scanned the illustration and had to extended the width a little to get it to fit the oblong format better. I did this in Photoshop by enlarging the canvas width and cloning the rocks to the right of the image. This was done by lunchtime.
After lunch I printed it out and also changed the wording on the Roti Island snake neck turtle ID text. Tim had queried the text that had been done by Education... it had said we were hoping to breed the species, when in actual fact we had already bred them.. so that needed correcting. I reprinted the text as two versions, as I did before, one for adults and one for juveniles as there will be two displays of this species.
After trimming them to size, the signs were laminated and ready to go up to the animal section.
Later in the afternoon I helped Anna,(Graphic Designer) change the wording on a pointer sign. She had done the rest herself (Maintenance had taken down most of the pointer signs for her to do in the studio) but two needed to be done in situ where she needed assistance with work steps (health & Safety - we're not to use steps on our own). We went up to the Maintenance workshop to get a set of steps, but they were in a meeting, which would be finished in 5-10 mins. So Anna and I sat on a bench outside of the building in the sun whilst we waited. It was so nice to sit in the very warm sun, seems a very long time since it has been nice enough to do that. It's certainly the first time this year I have actually sat in the sun for a few mins, hopefully it won't be another wet summer and there will be plenty more opportunities 'to soak up some rays'. All too soon the 5 mins were up and we were able to get our steps. The first pointer sign was in a tricky position in a sloping flower bed with a medium sized bush at the base of the pole. After trying several different angles to get the steps in, we gave up. We just couldn't get it near enough or stable enough to get up to the sign safely. The next one was successful... Anna had to hand pick the vinyl lettering off saying 'Explorer's Creek' and stick on the ready cut letters spelling 'Feed the Lorikeets'. I stood on the base of the steps to 'anchor' them.
On our way back from dropping the steps back up to Maintenance, I noticed the shadows cast by the silver birches on the canopy of the outside eating area of the Coral Cafe.
I love it when the sun is out and casts these shadows... it is very striking - like a huge piece of living art.
For the last part of the day I worked at the computer, backing up some of my ID files to the zoo's server.
Wednesday 1st May
I started the background for the panther chameleon this morning. After some thought on what approach and colours I should use, I opted for yellowish greens in a nondescript wash. The chameleon is green but bluish green... and I wanted greens to reflect the leafy aboreal habitat of this species, but in tones that would not confuse too much with the animal. I was quite excited as today I get to use my new paper, that I ordered last month. Up until now I have been using a pack of 300grms Not watercolour paper, which has a slight texture to it. My new paper is Hot Press 300grms watercolour, which has a very smooth surface, no texture. I am hoping this will help eliminate the slight colour variations I sometimes get when scanning.. particularly large areas of one colour... like the black backgrounds of the fish illustrations. Whilst I waited for the paint to dry I nipped over to the Flamingo Paddock to check on the Ruff to see if he has started changing to his breeding plumage yet. For the last two years the males have changed sufficiently enough around mid April to warrant the change over of ID's to the one that shows the males with their showy ruffs of their breeding plumage. However my check shows that the one male bird we have left is not noticeably changing his plumage as yet. I am curious about this... is the lateness or lack of change to breeding plumage due to the long cold Spring we have had so far or the fact that he is alone with no other males or females or is there another reason?
The Asiatic lion cubs are just by the flamingo paddock and I could see they were out and playing around, so I went to have a look. One was sat in the sun near to the front of the glass and he was playing with his tail... just had to video his antics. So endearing.
Back in the studio I completed my backing up on the computer and to make some room on the harddrive and server I burnt, to DVD, some of the ID documents that had been filed away as they were no longer needed. These are the old Quark, Freehand and Indesign documents that have since been redone in Illustrator. I also thinned out some of my reference photo's of species that I have done and added the rest to the DVD to be burnt; freeing up some valuable space.
After lunch I went out for my sketch time. For a number of years I have had my eye on the Fritillaria imperialis... two plants of this species grow near the round aviary and they are one of my favourite blooms.
Today I really fancied drawing them.. the weather is warm and sunny and at the moment there are not huge crowds around... perfect for sitting in the pathway to draw them.
After doing them I wandered around for more subject matter, but most of the flowers I fancied drawing were in a place where I would be in the way to sit and draw for any length of time. So I wandered around for a bit. I noticed the arabis growing on the bank leading into Seal and Penguin Coast... beautiful colours.
Eventually I settled down round in the viewing bay looking across to the Gorilla Island. It is tucked out of the way and quite often gets overlooked by the visitors as it looks onto the 'back' of the island. I sat and watched the gorillas, sketching them... but didn't get on very well. This was about the only successful sketch I managed.. the rest were just one or two abandoned lines.
However little Kukena was very entertaining. He's quite a little adventurer now, although Mum, Salome, still likes him to stay close.
One of the young females climbed the tree in front of me and sat in the boughs at the top, munching on the bamboo leaves she had taken up with her and then just lying in the crook of the boughs enjoying the peace and quiet and sun perhaps.
It was an enjoyable hour or so watching them all... Romina walking around with a piece of cloth around her neck, Kukena exploring and investigating, Salome tucking herself away in the outside shelter to munch on some of the browse left out by the keepers and Jock striding around commandingly in the background. I was enjoying it so much I forgot the time and stayed there later than planned, as I wanted to get back to the studio to upload the photo's and clear up my desk etc before going home.
I'll end this week's post with a photo of Kukena.
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