Serious dose of St Johns Wort

The last 2 weeks I've been hammering out ideas for final pieces and doing some additional research.  I'm taking serious exercise and the allowed daily dose of St Johns Wort to combat the potential depression that could arise from looking very closely at my chosen subject matter.  We humans sure do have a lot to answer for!!

Observation of shapes, surfaces, patterns and movement

coloured pencils

leopard - graphite

tail of sperm whale - graphite

Humpback flippers

bottlenose

Humpback

The sketchbooks are filling up gradually and now comes the tricky bit .........
These are only observations. The end results will bear no resemblance.

Easter already!!

Time has flown and things have been busy.

I had my head down for a good week and a half preparing my proposal for 'Mali in the City'.  Melbourne Zoo is celebrating its 150th anniversary and have 50 life-sized 'Mali' sculptures that need decorating.  Where possible, the Zoo is looking for conservation and environmental themes consistent with their strategy of saving threatened species and 'fighting extinction' commitment.  This fitted in nicely with my 'Earthling' project and so I've taken the plunge and my proposal arrived at the Zoo earlier this week.  There will be a lot of competition for this public art project but it feels good to have given it a go.  I have designed my elephant in such a way that it should be quite straightforward to paint it in a public space.  Here's hoping.  I should have a decision by early May.

I had also agreed to design a logo for the organisation, SAVE JAPAN DOLPHINS AUSTRALIA.  Save Japan Dolphins is a campaign conducted by the International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Institute.  Its Director is Ric O'Barry.  SJD was formed to put an end to the Japanese drive fishery slaughter of dolphins and to stop the capture and live trade of dolphins to zoos and aquariums around the world.  

The work of Ric and the SJD team was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary THE COVE as well as Animal Planet Channel's Blood Dolphins series.

An Australian chapter was set up in Melbourne at the start of 2012 and I am involved in this.  The Australian logo design has now been approved by America and it will appear on the Australian Merchandise in the very near future.

I am also in the process of completing a large artwork called Her home is in the Ocean.  My references for this were from my own observations/sketches/photos of the dolphins here in Port Phillip Bay.  I also relied fairly heavily on the fantastic photographs taken by Charlie Phillips, a field officer for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.  Charlie is based at North Kessock on the Moray Firth in Scotland where I hail from.  I am very familiar with the Moray Firth Dolphins and have even 'adopted' one.  I hope to see Spirit and her calf when I visit later in the year.  Thanks so much to Charlie for allowing me to do this.

I will be using an image of this painting for another public art project here in Victoria and it will feature in my Advanced Diploma portfolio later in the year but eventually I hope to sell the painting and donate the proceeds to Save Japan Dolphins.

Happy Easter everyone.