Dessine-moi un mouton
In the best possible way, it feels like my whole life has been about encouraging other people to find their creative outlets.
Ever since I started drawing, as far back as I can remember, people would ask me to draw things for them. Just like the narrator in Le Petit Prince, when asked to draw a sheep, at first I did exactly what I thought they wanted, but gradually learnt that what people really need is a prompt for their imagination.
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Kākāriki of AotearoaI have explored the different types of parrots in the kākāpō post, so I won't go into that here. I grew up signing the rainbow in Te Reo at primary school, so for me, "kākāriki" means "green", and "karaka" means orange, so this bird's name is a bit confusing for my super-basic Māori language skills! My favourite winter house plantI got this little cyclamen on a whim - I hadn't even seen one with such tiny flowers, or such a vibrant colour. It cheered me up through the whole of the winter, and is finally going dormant now in late spring. It also made a glorious background to my photos of my succulents, which I have drawn and talked about in this post.
Save trees, only print what you needWe are choosing not to print our instructions, to reduce waste and our impact on the environment. With that in mind, we are going to put instructions for our various Colour-Cut-And-Sew projects on the blog instead. Here's how to make this bag - lined, and unlined.
The name "fairy tern" is so endearingIn Te Reo, the names of this bird are tara iti, tara teo, or tara teoteo. "Iti" and "teo" mean tiny. Repeating a syllable is often done in Māori as emphasis. "Tara" means tern, but it also has a lot of other meanings. I like the idea of it being a tiny sharp thing.
We recently attended one of our favourite markets of the year, the Wellington Polish Christmas Market. As we started ramping up to prepare for our end-of-year markets, I got inspired to do some designs focused around the delights of European food.
I had just finished my fungi of the Pacific Northwest design, and I had also just joined "Show me your charcuterie" on Facebook, so the stars aligned for me to create one of my favourite designs this quarter. A medium-sized storm petrel, grey above with prominent white rump, dark-grey flight feathers and tail, mainly white underparts, white face with a broad white stripe above the eye, a nearly square cut rather than forked tail when folded, and black legs and yellow webbing. In flight, the wings are broad and the long legs dangling; they move over water in a series of hops striking it with both legs.
Population: perhaps 100-300 pairs. Source: NZ birds online Parrots of AotearoaThere are quite a few species of parrot in New Zealand, some of which are sadly extinct. There are nine surviving species which are endemic to NZ. Two of these species are on our list of the Threatened–Nationally Critical birds to draw in this series (shown in bold). Sadly, several others are also endangered. Meet the Tokoeka (at the same time as me, lol)OMG - the tokoeka is a Kiwi! How delightful! I really enjoy being a bit surprised by the subject of my design each day, so I research as I go. Duck detectionOK, so at first glance, this just looks like "a duck". Like, a normal duck. |
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December 2019
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