day one-hundred-and-seventy-two - tree shrew

it's a shrew that lives in the trees

© jem barratt

there are tonnes of them at adelaide zoo. so much so that they kind of seem like they're only there to fill the gaps. yep, that's how i feel about you tree shrews. enjoy.

also i saw one eat its own excrement. charming animals.

xj

day eighty-eight - dusky langur

dodgy, yes, but such a cool animal:

© jem barratt

now imagine the baby is bright orange and you have successfully imagined what you have missed out on at adelaide zoo (yes again!). you should still see him though as he's still babyish, he's just not a cool colour anymore.

much like the colour of a 'spice' game cube controller if that helps. which it wouldn't, because surely i'm the only person who even still owns a game cube...

RELEVANCE!
xj

day eighty-seven - sumatran tiger

admittedly i have been very adelaide-zoo-centric lately. not only because i so badly wish to work there, and not even because it's the only zoo in my city. no, no, no. but for the much lazier reason of me drawing in my lunch break and just happening to have the zoo times in my bag.

and thus, tiger:

© jem barratt

someone remind me to learn how to screenprint - i think a bunch of my drawings would make good t-shirts. like the caracal. yep, linking to my own stuff...

xj (love from increasingly-arrogant-jem)

day fifty-six - binturong

the letter b, brought to you by my streaky as (bleep) scanner...

© jem barratt

this doesn't completely look like a binturong (for how can i convey his chocolatey eyes in green paint-pen?) but i still like it. it makes me want to write some kind of old children's novel about animals, in which the animal in question is holding the text. yes.

i love the adelaide zoo binturong. he manages to be charming while crunching up chicken bones. all i know about these guys (apart from their delicious-looking eyes and their penchant for bones) is that they are also known as bearcats. but NOW i also know that they are sometimes kept as pets and smell like pop corn.

what a tasty best friend they could make! tasty-smelling and tasty-looking that is. don't eat your pets you nutjob.
xj

day forty-six - bongo

it's funny how things work out. i spent most of the day planning to draw a sloth so i could have an excuse to post attenborough's description of them (postponed!); then i was going to draw this guy, because he's crazy cute; but this is what i ended up with:

© jem barratt

a bongo.

there was one at the adelaide zoo. not anymore, although i'm sure it's gone somewhere good because i don't think the zoo can just bin their animals. (it's in melbourne... damn you melbourne)

i likes to sketch with poscas. this style reminds me of the small drawings in novel series like redwall and narnia.

xj

day forty-four - zoo medley

today i went to the (adelaide) zoo, and boy do they have a lot of parrots now! it's so good. not to mention all the 'zooborns' - mandrills, wallaby, tamarins, bilbies and (as yet unseen) ghost bat.

© jem barratt

i like the happy accident of the music staves showing through from the next page.

so here i drew a razor-billed curassow, a kookaburra, a yellow crowned amazon parrot, a hyacinth macaw, and an archer fish. it would probably be nicer if they were all birds, but i haven't drawn a fish yet and thought it was time.

i need to practise drawing from live animals instead of photos.
xj

day forty-one - fennec fox

WE ARE NOT BABIES!

© jem barratt

that's what the adelaide zoo has to say about fennec foxes anyway. don't discriminate just because they look like cute little baby foxes. they'll bite ya.

(they probably won't). what they will do is fox it up in the desert, use their giant ears to cool down, and get harvested for fur. a mix of good and bad there.

xj

day twenty-six - pygmy hippopotamus

such a cute genre of hippopotamuses... (hippopotami? i think it's both).

© jem barratt

just like real life, the baby one is much cuter.

i would like to request that all two of my readers please watch 'the great rift: africa's wild heart' on abc tomorrow because then i won't have to link to it all the time. speaking of which, go here to see some horrific hippo-teeth-tearing-up-gums-action.

yum!
xj

p.s. i have officially dubbed the pgymy hippo at adelade zoo pygmalion, so please address him accordingly

day twenty - panda

wow. i did not think this through. 345 days to go?! waaaah.

in any case, people who know me would probably say pandas are my favourite animals. but only those that truly know me, know exactly why i love them.

© jem barratt

before i elaborate, i should just say that i love the branding on the haighs/adelaide zoo chocolates and wanted to try the style for myself.

now for some facts about/reasons to truly love pandas: