Zoo Friday the IVth

I've been restlessly waiting for a fine day to go to the zoo. "Fine" meaning not humid and temperature in the 30 degrees. This week was the first time since Summer, the weather has not been in the thirties, can you believe! Finally, Autumn is here, a month and a half late, a (slightly coldish) 24' day. It was a spur of a moment thing and Tim was recouperating from the flu, so I went by myself this time, despite Tim telling me to wait so he could come too. The day was way too nice, and I've been waiting way too long, and I lurve the zoo so much, I HAD to go.

Also I've been so spent with trying to get things up on RedBubble and trying to get the pet portraits going. I had to get out of the house and back to just plain drawing.

Red Bubble is a great arts community hub and all, but for someone to pay postage costs for a card, that is more than the actual price I've set for the card, along with the fact that most of that price goes to Red bubble to cover production costs, which I totally understand, there's got to be a more efficient way. The t-shirts meanwhile, are still good, considering many street brand T's sold in department stores are $54.

Then doing simple things like making pamphlets and marketing material for Olive the Rabbit Pet Portraits, or making copies of inked drawings to paint up, has become such a troublesome thing with the most of the printing places 30-45 mins drive away with little to no parking, or turnover time too long, or colours not right when I do get them back, and unflexibility with paper type.

I am now looking into investing in a high level, big, A3 scanner-printer and making my own stuff. Anyone got any pointers on the best printers for giclee artwork, let me know.

So back to the zoo, here's a tip for other drawers, go from 2-5pm in the afternoon. The huge groups of school kiddies are rounded up and gone by 2.15pm, which means timid animals like the numbat, come out to forage, right up to the edge, Plus lots of the animals start getting fed and checked by the zoo keepers at 3pm. And then most wild animals naturally wake up from their day slumber in the late afternoon sunlight ready for the evening, so 4.30ish they were all coming out.

I got to finally see the elusive Red Panda, two of them, and more in the back sanctuaries, so gorgeous! And have you ever seen a koala run accross the ground? Hilarious, their hinds legs stick together and their front paws are wide out, and they go bounding in a fast gallop to the next tree. They go up the tree really fast too.

The cockatoos (and parrots) are always my favourite. So clever, so sociable, and so much personality in the tiny bunch of fancy feathers.

 

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