I painted the 15th and 16th penguins. Four more to go!
The newest additions – 15 and 16…and there they are with their penguin family members, and just as surprised as the rest of them to find a wombat lounging in their sleeping quarters!!
Then I have managed to maintain the momentum and paint number 17 penguin. I’ve started drawing more of the nest too. It feels a bit like Doodle Art. That was all the rage when I was a teenager. I’d save up my money to buy the Doodle Art that came in a tube with coloured textas (felt pens). They were themed posters to colour. They are “vintage” now. I’ve coloured in THE SEA and BUTTERFLIES. They are long gone now.
Anyways, the nest reminded me of doodle art days.
can you spot number 17 penguin?
Hope you’re well and can enjoy a spell of mindless and relaxing doodling today.
Progress is being made… I still have more penguins to paint, detail to add, not to mention the dreaded background! There are also several penguins with missing feet, including the wombat that needs his foot painted too.
Six more penguins to go!
The missing feet on this painting is not something sinister or mysterious and will soon be rectified, unlike the twenty detached human feet that have washed up on the shores around Vancouver and Vancouver Island, Canada, since 2007. The mystery around these feet, which at one time were thought to be originating from a funeral home, but investigations have since confirmed that the feet come from people who have unfortunately died. The feet detach by the normal decomposition process. The feet were usually found in sneakers. Coroners postulate that the sneakers helped to give the feet buoyancy, enough to eventually be washed ashore, and gave the feet protection from decomposition that helped them to remain relatively intact. The feet have been able to provide some closure for families by DNA matching with the National Missing Persons data base.
I’m going to make a point of enjoying my feet today! I hope that you can too.
I started this painting, loosely inspired by the Goldilocks and Three Bears story, a few weeks ago. It feels like it is going to take a year to finish!!
I really like the colours of blue and beige. I think those two colours sing and are lively together. These two dominant colours also attracted me to try to paint this idea of fairy penguins and a wombat that formed in my head about two years ago.
Twelve more penguins to go!
I hope that everybody’s weekend is travelling along well.
Thanks for stopping by and hopefully next time you visit, there’ll be more penguins to see. Cheers from, Pj Paintings
I didn’t get much time to paint today but I did add one more fairy penguin to my picture.
Eventually all twenty will be painted. This painting that I’m working on is telling a story similar to that of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but an Tasmanian-ised version. Here in Tasmania, there are no bears, not even koala “bears”, who aren’t bears, rather they are marsupials, so they can quite easily be discounted from this story. But there are our regular fairy penguin visitors, the smallest species of penguins.
You can imagine the surprise when twenty fairy penguins waddle up the beach to discover a wombat in their nest!! (I haven’t drawn the nest as of yet).
I’ll keep bringing more penguins to life over the next few days. Take care and thanks for stopping by, PJ Paintings
In other parts of the world, snow probably isn’t a big deal but here in Australia it is and it makes front page news. There are many who have never seen snow. We have Queenslanders (pre-COVID) visit Tasmania for that very reason, to see snow for the first time in their lives.
I’ve been told that there used to be snow on kunanyi/Mt Wellington for months at a time during the winter.
kunanyi, Tasmania, August 7, 2020
Nowadays, snow is only there for a few days before it all melts away and disappears, just like the Tasmanian emus, which were hunted to extinction about 150 years ago. But, I have recently discovered that my emus are not the only honorary Tasmanian snow-loving emus around! Chook Chook, an adopted mainland emu, a Tasmanian resident, living in Kaoota, is also a snow-loving, honorary Tasmanian emu.
Snow-emu
This print is titled “Snowbirds” and is also a greeting card. Both are available online, at http://www.pjpaintings.com
Chook Chook is 19 years old! Their life expectancy is 20 years and he is still going strong. Chook Chook was advertised in the Tasmanian Mercury when he was a chick for $10. The wet or snow doesn’t worry Chook Chook at all. When the garden hose comes out, he comes running to be sprayed. Emus are actually good swimmers and seek out water to cool themselves in the hot outback of Australia.
Australia’s early settlers hunted emus for food and as a result the emus that were abundant in Tasmania and Australia’s east coast disappeared. Today, only one population remains in existence, aside from the thriving Australian inland emus, the coastal emu. The New South Wales (NSW) Government, in 2002, listed the coastal emus as an endangered population as its numbers were, and continues to be, in steep decline.
The coastal emu. Photography by Stephen Otton
The coastal emu is genetically distinct from the inland emu and an important seed disperser. It travels large distances and plays an important role in the regeneration of native species. Other species do a similar service but not to the same capacity. If the coastal emu is lost from the ecosystem it will reduce diversity and populations of species that depend on the plants, not to mention the loss of another emu species.
The range of the endangered coastal emu population. (Image credit: Coastal Emu Alliance). An estimated 50 Coastal Emus remain in crucial habitat areas of the Clarence and Richmond valleys.
A concerted effort is necessary to save an endangered species with numbers as low as the coastal emu. It is encouraged that sightings of coastal emus and/or nests are reported to The Coastal Emu Register. Identifying nesting sites can help target feral animal control at the local level. Tracking the seasonal movements of the emus, will help build an understanding of the survival rates of adults and chicks, and whether a captive breeding may be required to re-build the number of Coastal Emus found in the wild.
If you are out and about coastal emu spotting, for accuracy sake, please be aware that there are also adventuresome PJ Paintings emus running around.
Family Outing
Bonnie and Me!
Surfing Clifton Beach, Tasmania
Take care and thank you for visiting the unfurling artist. 🙂
Sometimes I paint something that no matter how hard I rack my brain, I can’t think of a title. I know you can go with the title “Untitled” but I’d rather not.
A good friend of mine, from the northern end of Tasmania, asked me if I could paint an ice skating emu so that she could get a print of the painting to give to her daughter, who LOVES ice skating. She regularly travels to Hobart for that very purpose – to ice skate.
This image is available now for purchase: shop now
Thinking of a title turned out to be more difficult than drawing and painting the picture. Has anyone else had this problem?? Some of the titles I came up with were:
Spin- ster
Going for a Spin
Ice Queen
Ice Princess
Unhappy with all of the above, I decided it was time to elicit some help from my Facebook friends. Ideas were proposed and I narrowed it down to “Emu Icecapades”. I think this is an awesome title for the painting.
Thank you friends for helping me name this painting!
The Yaraka Hotel in outback Queensland, Australia, has banned entry to Kevin and Carol emus, and as a consequence gained worldwide notoriety, as the story has gone viral. The world is in need of some light-hearted news during the COVID-19 pandemic and this story seems to be fulfilling some of this demand.
A local Animal Rescuer, Leanne Byrne, found an abandoned emu nest of eggs and raised the clutch of emus. Kevin’s and Carol’s brothers and sisters have moved on, but this pair remained and endeared themselves to the locals and visitors alike.
Leanne Byrne poses for a photo with one of her feathery babies.
A rift developed after Kevin and Carol learnt how to climb stairs to gain entry into the pub.
The inquisitive emus were captured on digital by pub customer and visiting tourist Sam Guzzardi.
The pair caused havoc by eating guests’ food and leaving messy, smelly deposits behind, which the pub owner wasn’t too thrilled about having to clean up each time it happened, and apparently emu toileting needs are frequent!
The emus are no longer allowed in the Yaraka Hotel after a spate of bad behaviour.(Supplied: Chris Gimblett)
In order to maintain a good working relationship, the owner of the pub set up emu barricades, citing ‘bad emu behaviour’ as making this a necessary action.
The hotel has erected barricades and put up signs urging tourists to keep the emus out.(Supplied: Chris Gimblett)
Kevin and Carol aren’t the only emus strutting there stuff around town. I’ve captured other emus in their strutting action too.
Bright & Breezy
Walking with Flair
A Fashion af-Flair
Take care everybody and be careful around misbehaving emus.
