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...
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