Northern pika

Northern pika

This is Northern pika I drew from Tokyo National Museum of Nature and Science.

This species of Pika is found in Northern Eurasia continent such as Russia, Mongolia, nothern Korea and also Hokkaido in Japan.
They are also known as a living fossil as they are believed to have existed since the Ice Age

Although it looks much smaller than a rabbit or a hare (you could hold a pika on one hand) and resembles more like a guinea pig, Pika belongs to the Lagomorpha order of which hares and rabbits are a part. They have the same number of teeth as that of lagomorphs and have incisors with no canines.

We call Pika Naki-usagi - the whistling or crying rabbit -  in Japan because of their high pitch call.
Male and female make different sounds and they cry even more between March and October in their mating season.


They are vulnerable to the environmental change but are not a protected species, unlike Amami rabbit.
It's probably because their biology is not fully understood as they've only been discovered in 1928.

original sketch of Northern pika at Museum

Drawing animals at museums is great, it's like getting to really know the animals.
Before I started drawing them, I knew nothing of their history, anatomy, their favorite food and how big they really are, the actual colours of their furs and so on and on.
This might sound like an exaggeration but it feels as though it's like re-uniting with my distant cousin I never met or something like that...

Anyway I adore you Northern pika.

drawing session with reptiles

Damon introduced me to Robin Wilson, his friend and also a senior curator in marine invertebrates section at Melbourne Museum, earlier this week.
Damon and I went to the back of the Museum and drew their specimen collection of reptiles.
Robin introduced us to Wayne Longmore, collection manager for Ornithology and Mammalogy.
Wayne let us look through shelves with hundreds of wet specimen in bottles.

We went to a shelf of chameleons and geckoes.

Carefully taking them out of bottles full of ethanol with tweezers and place it on a petri dish, we began to draw and draw and draw.

It was such an intense unforgettable experience.
In the room, there was this human desire to collect, label and know all things in nature.
At the same time it was heartbreaking to see everyone bottled up, and being picked up by tweezers for me to draw.

Life-long dedication and obsession.
Absolute beauty and slight madness.
Abundance and insatiability.
All in one room.

It makes me wonder what it means to know about something.



Drawing there was so intoxicatingly great, I can't stop thinking about when I can go back there and see everyone in the bottles.


Thank you so much Damon always!!
And thank you so much Robin and Wayne for making us feel so welcomed.

preparatory drawings

preparing for a cabinet installation at the end of this month.
this is one of the most fun time in any projects for me!

masks

i guess i really miss my family in japan... it's end of summer over there, must be still hot!

Anatomy of living things

Our Australian Print Workshop has opened from its renovation closure recently.
Because I didn't have access to etching facility, I have been only doing engravings on wood and copper.
And also I've been doing lots of ink drawings in preparation of etching when the Workshop opens.


I'm going to the Workshop next week to start making some etchings using the drawings I've done while it was closed.


These are selections of drawings I want to make etchings of.
They are all like things inside living creatures because lots of references I use are Life's Natural Library books or National Geographic magazines.


As I look at them, my dream grows...
It is to have a Wunderkammer, Cabinet of Curiosity with my prints, drawings and collections of mineral specimens!!

Weird fishes

I get eaten by the worms
Weird fishes
Get picked over by the worms
Weird fishes
Weird fishes
Weird fishes

Doodle time capsules

I have been drawing every day and night, even at my casual temp job at the reception. (job is priority though, really!)
I often like my drawings at work better than when I'm in my studio concentrating to make something nice.
Not always, but I seem to make things I like when I'm on the phone with someone I don't know about.


I figured that I can work better when I'm not trying and I'm not aware of what exactly I'm doing.
And then I'd come back to the studio after work and try to re-draw from what I got from daytime.
Quite often those little drawings end up being nothing but they always serve other purpose in my studio.


They work really well as my time capsules.
I will look at them in few years time and feel nostalgic / embarrassed / inspired etc...
I actually looked at my 6-years-old sketch books for ideas recently.
I thought I'd use bits and pieces of them as they were unexpectedly interesting.
They are my strictly secret books as they are too embarrassing.


I used to think there is some sort of divine power that descends on to genius artists with some inspirations and ideas.
That's a bit of an exaggeration but I did think I needed to be a super creative inventor of everything brand new.
So absurd!
I believe now that inspiration and creativity come from exploring, re-examining and transforming own experiences and existing ideas, re-thinking about memories or images that are archived in my head somewhere. I don't believe I can ever be a super inventor of original art that no one has ever seen before.
Everyone gets inspired from someone else's great works and ideas.
I guess important thing for me is to create something that people already know or seen but from a new or a different perspective.
So I will keep my daily drawing.... secretly.... at my reception in the office.

Yokai

Since I was little, I have always been fascinated by Yokai.
My all time favorite comic is about them too.
Yokai is a Japanese supernatural beings often from folklore.
They are kind of like monsters but some of them are treated like gods too in Shinto.

There are many types of Yokai.
Ordinary household items that come to life after many years, humans transformed into one by extreme emotional state or animals that have lived long enough to have magical power, to name a few.


I'm trying to depict Yokai with different media like books and drawings.

Maybe I'll try making a sculpture next time.....

Edible trees

More trees + an island from the obsessive weekend.
Pure Pleasure!

Soul of flowers

On the weekend, I was obsessed.
Obsessed with drawing what looks like trees.




I felt something had popped in my head!
I don't think I ever did drawing like this.


I looked at them today and remembered a poem I saw when I was in primary school year 4.


Please excuse my poor translation.....

Soul of flowers by Misuzu Kaneko

Souls of fallen flowers,
Born every last one,
In Buddha's flower garden

Because flowers are gentle,
When the sun is calling,
They pop open and smile,
Giving sweet nectar to butterflies,
Giving their scent to people

When wind calls "Come",
They still follow it gently,

Even their corpses,
Become a meal in a playhouse

Fungi Land study

I'm studying mushrooms at the moment as an experiment for background images.

Study of Telebunnies

watercolour on paper

Study of a rainy tree

Study of bunny
Watercolour
2008