Manchot Adélie

Adélie II, 2014

I did a little sketch of a specimen of Adélie Penguin in the National Museum of Natural History in Paris in the beginning of this year.
I recently turned the pencil drawing into two versions of etchings.

First of all I printed Adélie for a print exchange project with Rona Green on the theme of animals and later I printed Adélie II with a second plate to introduce new and warmer colours.

Adélie, 2014

I remember watching a TV program about Antarctica as a child and saw the image of penguins sitting on the egg in the cold wind.
Male and female penguins take turns to incubate until the egg hatch.

It left me with a somehow strong feeling that penguin parents were the same as mine, keeping me in warm and comfortable place.  

Original sketch

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle

National Museum of Natural History was a beautiful place to be with lots of different animals including extinct ones. Lots of art students were drawing from the collection too.

I hardly buy any souvenirs for myself when I travel so drawing at museums and elsewhere is a bit like a memento. It's lovely to flip through the sketchbooks and re-visit the memory of the time and the places.

I could have easily spent another entire day or two here.

I have to go back to Paris and visit the museum again, along with so many other great museums!
I love to see you again soon Paris!

Kangaroo

Kangaroo, 2013

I've always liked kangaroo's unique fascinating body.

Features such as the powerful hind legs for hopping and a strong tail that balances its body, as well as the pouch that carries the baby roo have been very familiar to me even as a child in Japan.

There is even a courier company that uses the image of roo as their logo in my hometown too, which I kind of feel strange now that I've lived in Australia for so long.

I made this drawing when I visited the Melbourne Museum mammal room with Damon Kowarsky last year.

Original drawing

Damon also made a print of a similar looking animal from Melbourne Museum collection.
They do have lots of roo / wallaby specimen there!

Damon's print 'Thylogale'

Red-eared firetail

Red eared firetail, 2013

I met this Red eared firetail at the end of last year at Melbourne Museum.

Red eared firetail is a beautiful finch found in south-west Australia.
Their beaks, eyes and lores are fiery bright red, and just as all firetail family, the rump is bright red too.
Lower part of their body is black with white spots.

I put this little firetail on a shoulder of a girl that kind of looks like me...

This one was in a small corner of a very large room full of beautiful taxidermy in the public section like this.

Melbourne museum, mammal section

I'm so happy to see all of you!
I will draw every single one of you eventually.

My next aim is to draw Diamond firetail, quite similar to Red eared firetai.
It's Pupperrimbul, a little bird with a red patch on its tail who made the sun long long ago in Aboriginal mythology...

Mammals from Melbourne Museum

Sugar glider, 2012

Mammals from Melbourne Museum is a small exhibition I'm having in February at Japan Information and Cultural Centre in Consulate-General of Japan in Melbourne.

This exhibition will feature six prints and texts about each animal as part of my ongoing drawing project at museums.

This is the first exhibition to present my animal specimen prints from Melbourne Museum as a series.

Stoat, 2012

This project started in 2011 with Damon Kowarsky who suggested going to Melbourne Museum to draw chameleons in order to create a zine called "Talking of a chameleon".

Wayne Longmore, collection manager at Ornithology and Mammalogy section, assisted this project by allowing us to have a close look at animals of our choice.

I'm in Japan at the moment and did more drawings at National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo. I'm looking forward to making prints of these new drawings too.

1 - 28 February 2013

Consulate General of Japan, Melbourne

Japan Information and Cultural Centre
Level 8, Marland House

570 Bourke Street, Melbourne

Mon to Fri 9:00 to 1:00, 2:00 to 5:00

Closed on weekends and public holidays

View Larger Map

Water rat

Water rat is a rodent native in Australia that makes their home in lakes, ponds and river.
Paddling on the surface of the water, they probably look like platypus.

They have webbed hind legs and waterproof furs for swimming.
Their distinctive flat head with small eyes and ears and white-tipped tail are quite distinctively different from other types of rodents - looks somehow more similar to otters.

detail, Water rat

Rats are another recurring animal in my work after rabbits.

It's an animal I often drew as a child too.

Maybe it's because my parents often told me I was always running around like a rat! 

My Chinese zodiac being Rat used to help my parents' claim.

I also like imagining one day small animals like rats would take over the world and make their own kingdom, or form government. 

In retrospect, many of my works like Laputa II, Kitchen and Boss Rabbit prints from my collaborative works with Damon Kowarsky as well as some imageries from my artist books, are based on this idea of small animals taking over the world.

I didn't realise it at the time of making them, but this dark thought might be in my lurking in my subconscious secretly hoping this might happen one day....

original drawing of the Water rat

This is my last print of 2012. This print as well as 5 other prints from Melbourne Museum series will be exhibited at Japan Information and Culture Centre at Consulate-General of Japan in Melbourne in February in 2013.
What a year 2012, launched earlier this year and disappeared into space like a satellite and now it's orbiting around my head!

European rabbit

Latest addition to my museum animal series is this European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) from Melbourne Museum specimen collection room.

Since I was a child I loved drawing rabbits, my first drawing was a rabbit and my first art project in primary school was of rabbits. I made my own cartoons and manga where a rabbit was a protagonist.
My love for drawing rabbits deepened after reading Watership Down by Richard Adams too.
It got me imagining what their daily lives might be like in the warrens. 

Original drawing, European rabbit

I didn't even know they are considered vermin in Australia before I relocated.
They cause millions of dollars of damage in crops.
It's partly because they are such prolific animals - only 24 rabbits were first introduced in 19th century in Australia and they had multiplied in number to over 600 million over the course of less than a century!! AMAZING

I often think about the world taken over by rabbits. Speaking Lapin language (created by Richard Adams), worshiping rabbit god, serving only vegetarian food in all restaurants... I'm pretty sure they would hate us here in Australia!

So I was surprised to read that rabbits are classified as Near Threatened by World Conservation Union.

European rabbit, head

 My passion for drawing rabbits has been going for a long time and I think it'll stay this way for many more years to come.

Sugar glider

Sugar glider is a marsupial mammal, native to Australia.
They earned their name from their love of sweet things such as nectar and flowers (and insects too) and their ability to glide through the air between trees.
They are scientifically called Petaurus breviceps, "short-headed rope-dancer" because of their acrobatic skill!

Original drawing of Sugar glider

I drew her at Melbourne Museum a while back and finally printed her yesterday.
She has large eyes to help see at night and swiveling ears to help locate prey in the dark.
I'm pretty sure that this sugar glider is female as male has a bald spot on forehead which acts as scent gland.

detail

I heard they are popular domesticated exotic pet around the world, especially in the US.
I completely understand it as I felt like taking her home with me even though she wasn't alive.
But.. will they be able to glide through the air like they do in their natural habitat in someone's house...?

detail

 I would like to thank Wayne Longmore, curator at Melbourne Museum for your generosity in letting me work in the collection room and Tim Lane, artist and technician at Trinity Grammar School for helping me mix lovely colours and print like I was a master printer until late at night.

More information on this print is on my website.

Stoat

Stoat, also known as ermine or short tailed weasel, is a small mammal native to Eurasia and North America.

This stoat was at Melbourne Museum collection room.
I made a pencil drawing and then turned it into an etching the other day at Jazmina Cininas' studio.

Although it looks sort of cuddly, the stoat is a carnivorous animal preying on rodents, insects, reptiles, fish, amphibians. The stoat's favorite meal however is a rabbit, despite the fact that a stoat is generally much smaller than a rabbit.

In winter the fur becomes white and silky with the tip of its tail that‘s always black.
The fur in summer is brown with white stomach.
The stoat fur in its winter coat is referred to as ermine and this has been considered a valuable part of the fur industry.

Elizabeth I of England, "the Virgin Queen", painted with an ermine on her arm.

I've found numbers of Irish and European mythology around this animal.
In some cultures they are noxious and bad luck but in others they are considered sacred or a symbol of beauty.
One popular European myth had it that white stoats would die rather than risking its pure white coat soiled.

I will keep reading about them!

Young Malay Tapir

As I already said in this blog few times, I love drawing animal specimens in Melbourne Museum.
It is so wonderful I want to set up a camp there.

This particular guy, Young Malay Tapir caught my eyes on my first day.
I immediately fell in love with his solid yet small body, strong and sweet black eyes and cute tiny tail. His mum or dad was on the same shelf above him, much much bigger.

He has beautiful short reddish brown fur.
I used mixture of sanguine, red, yellow ochre and van dyke brown, but I'm not sure if I got his beautiful fur quite right.
Well I don't think any art can ever be as beautiful as he is!

Thank you so much again, Melbourne Museum and the curator Wayne Longmore.

White tailed Jackrabbit

 

This white tailed Jackrabbit lives in Melbourne Museum mammal specimen room.

This one came from Upper Klamath Lake, California.

Earlier this year I started going to Melbourne Museum mammal room with Damon Kowarsky with assistance of curators Wayne Longmore and Karen Roberts.

As usual rabbit/hare shelf was the first section I went to look for specimens to draw.

This hare was the first one I drew on the first day at the Museum.

Damon and I make pencil drawings there and later in the studio we turn them into etchings.

This is my etching of White tailed Jackrabbit. 

Pencil drawing

All specimens have such beauty, even old and mangy ones.

It's quite fun to imagine they once ran in fields, slept on trees nibbled on grass, flesh and insects although their time's stopped forever now.

 

Space trumpet I

 

Space trumpet I is a new print I made in collaboration with Damon Kowarsky.

Martens are slender and very agile animals with bushy tails covered in yellowish to dark brown fur.
They are related to minks, badgers, ferrets and weasels.

detail, Space trumpet

It's a side story but martens are thought to have an ability to metamorphose into something else in some Japanese lores.
As their fur is highly expensive, there is a saying among hunters "don't go hunting with two people".
It is because the fur can be sold at a high price, one might kill the other for it.

detail, Space trumpet

Damon drew Japanese marten recently at Melbourne Museum mammal collection room.
Marten looked quite scary there unlike these cuddly guys in our new print.


Detail on the print is on our website!

Tia and Haniwa

Tia was my model for a different print in warm and cold colours.
Now she's a little grown up starting school next year.
I've made another print of recent Tia.
This will be my last print in 2011.

She's carrying a Haniwa terracotta clay figure on her head.
It's one of my favorite things I love to look and draw when I go to museums.
There are many different forms - horses, birds, dogs, shields, weapons, men, women etc..

They are ritural funerary figures used to be buried with aristocrats in Kofun period, late 3rd to late 6th century in Japan.
Some are used as a divider to create a sacred space. Some are used to keep the evil and bad spirits away.

Keeping Tia protected and safe!

More info on the print

Kitchen

My new print with Damon Kowarsky is a busy rats' kitchen!

Damon drew two squids at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.
I added rats working to get their meal ready.
I do like rats, if it wasn't too obvious...

Details

Fish head


Squid eye soup


Famished...

Lemur hug

Damon and I have a new Japan print.
He drew a squid at National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.
Lemur's hugging it to go to outer space like it's a rocket!

We'll try to print one more Japan edition before he leaves to New York soon where he will have an exhibition

Mountain hare

I drew this mountain hare in National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.


Original drawing

Mountain hare (Lepus timidus) is also called Blue hare, White hare, Alpine hare etc.
I found him in Japan section of the museum as they are native in Hokkaido.
There are also other isolated populations of Mountain hare in Alps, Ireland, Poland and Scottland.

Their coat turns brown in summer and white in winter.
Except their tail. It's white all year around...

It reminds me of okenite, one of my favorite minerals in the collection below.
We often call it "rabbit tail"


More information on this print

Chameleons completed

Damon and I have completed our Chameleon etching series.
All drawings are from the zine "Talking of a chameleon" EXCEPT this image above.
Space chameleon is an extra and not in the zine.

Other recent prints are below
They are tiny, only 14cm x 10cm image size.


Field


Cat


Fish

All drawings of chameleons were done by Damon at Melbourne Museum and vandalised by me...

Now for the next series!

Saturday at the museum

I went to Melbourne Museum last Saturday morning.
Always my favorite place!

Raccon was the animal I wanted to draw for my new wood block print.
I found rats in Discovery Centre's drawer instead.


Rats seem to be very unpopular here.
When I was at the table sketching these rats, lots of people were saying "how disgusting" "sick!"
I didn't know rats are seen as such nasty creatures.
I always thought they are cute!


Broad-toothed rat, so fluffy and cute...


Water rat, big like an otter.

Next time I will go in and hopefully draw racoon, if they have one inside.

I didn't know Melbourne Museum charges $10 for an admission by the way.
I remember it used to be a lot cheaper.
I miss Seoul where gigantic National museum is FREE!