the art of nature

to distract from the fact that we haven't posted in months, i'll show you the mantis's entry to the 'art of nature' t-shirt competition (run by the department of environment and natural resources):

isn't it pretty? especially the koala - he's my fave. unfortunately you can't vote for it as it was only entered today, but you can still enjoy it and marvel at the mantis's skills here or in the art of nature gallery once it shows up.

i might just make him make me a t-shirt even if he doesn't win...

x

365 animals

for those of you who haven’t already stumbled across it, i thoroughly recommend having a look at my passerine colleague’s latest endeavour: 365 animals.

for the past month she has been blogging the world’s myriad animal species – one for each day – in equally myriad artistic styles. so far we have seen pointilised chameleons, felt-tipped gibbons, water-coloured fiddlers, chalk-dust bee-eaters, potato-stamped fishes, long-stitched llamas and a panoply of waiter and bandit animals (she can explain). her most recent effort involved painting her very own face.

the blog is also a repository of the world’s oddest animal photographs and videos; painstakingly teased from the internet and collected herself while abroad. pandas falling out of trees, llamas eating banana skins and construction worker-mimicking lyrebirds; only the very finest. these accompany every post as well as an informative treatise on the creature in question.

thirty-eight animals, each as brilliant as the next have graced the blog to date. quick, go there now she's about to post 39, her namesake, the sparrow.

meet our (other) parrots

my how time flies when you procrastinate! but it takes time for parrot chickerlings (scientific term) to blossom into concentric wooden statues. it takes two monthses time.

and here they are:

grouped together according to beak type for your convenience. would you like a closer look? (yes) cool!

meet our owls

happy thursday!
i trust you are well. aren't you just loving this weather?
you know who else loves this weather? owls. our rainbow owls to be exact.

every colour of the rainbow.
except red. and indigo. and also violet. plus a pink one.
more OBPGY than ROY G BIV...

meet our penguins

good morn' (just snuck that in there...[unless you're from the eastern states {too many brackets?}])
i hope you had a lovely encounter with the primates.

our penguins want to meet you too, so i hope you'll be just as welcoming to them.
aren't they monochromatically marvellous?

meet our parrots

so... it's been a while. probably my fault. i apologise for that. these lovely parrots want to meet you (and soon our primates will too).

these lovely parrots of the world aren't for sale, but shortly we will have sets for sale and i'll write all about them.

schaffaaaaaaaaaaas!

now that the photo ban has been lifted we can share our schaffas with you. if you don't know what a schaffa is fair enough - they're pretty weird. go here to find out more. basically a schaffa is a plain wooden toy (created by the designer duo that is screamdance) waiting for an artist to have their arty way with it.

almost one hundred of these were on display in the black sheep foyer on friday night and boy were the efforts depressing! so much creativity and effort this time around - even more than in the inaugural schaffas exhibition way back in 2008.

now on to our contributions (from worst to best) as i'll let the mantis show off his own masterpiece: meet the L.P. coq...

photographed by screamdance

photographed by screamdance

well there you go. a bright little bird who likes his jazz hot.

x!

introducing...

please make our first set of parrot matryoshkas (aka russian dolls) feel very welcome. from left to right: masked lovebird, cockatiel, galah, eclectus parrot, and blue and yellow macaw.

who doesn't want a bunch of animals that fit snugly inside each other? more details and more animals coming soon. until next time...

x