day one-hundred-and-eighty-seven - chinese muntjac

or barking deer

© jem barratt

they have pretty gross faces too

and they're not even the coolest tiny-tusked deers around... take that muntjac!

they definitely have one of the best names though. it's so fun to yell. or to use as a derogatory term.

catch ya tomorrow you muntjacs! xj

day one-hundred-and-thirty-six - amazon horned frog

hi

© jem barratt

bye!

xj

day one-hundred-and-twelve - indian cobra

treat the vervet monkey as yesterday's drawing and this guy as today's:

© jem barratt

i like him. hopefully you like this slightly retarded drawing style too as it's all you'll be getting for a while. at least two of my right-hand-fingers still work!

xj

day one-hundred-and-eleven - vervet monkey

i don't feel bad about this being a day late because i dislocated my finger yesterday, and am unable to move my middle and fourth (ring?) finger on my writing hand. waah.

here is a diagram illustrating the transformation my finger went through:

© jem barratt

for serious. that should explain the quality of my drawings over the next week or so...

speaking of which:

© jem barratt

self-deprecation aside, i actually like this monkey. it looks like a cool kid's book illustration or something. i would like to try more simple, stylised drawings instead of realistic sketches.

xj

day ninety-seven - giant gourami

© jem barratt

this fish is pretty cool i guess but now i'm wishing i'd drawn its relative, the kissing fish.

although, this guy CAN breath air which is fairly amazing for a fish. he has a 'labyrinth organ' which works like a lung, meaning giant gouramis can live in oxygen-depleted waters, which means they can take over the world. i assume.

also they build nests suspended by bubbles. now if that's not evolution (and magical) i don't know what is.

xj

day seventy-four - emu

what time is it? it's WATERMELON BABY TIME!!

© jem barratt

yay! the world is right again. i'm sure that's cured something...

i love watermelon babies as much as the next guy (if the next guy is my clone), but not as much as i love animals riding other animals. especially when the base animal is surly.

xj

p.s. i realise how tenuous that link was but i had to find some way to share my love of animal jockeys without having to draw two animals in one

day fifty-eight - tanager

naming it vague tonight because i foolishly mis-coloured this here GREEN-headed tanager. ahem...

© jem barratt

blue's a type of green. ask anyone (make sure they're colourblind, or just normal blind). but in your FACE fate, because tanager's are actually songbirds. how fortuitous my sketchbook is!

i never thought i'd say this but i need brighter poscas... because this is what tanagers actually look like. eye-raping. in a good way. much like that chalk/neon affect neil taught us about on art attack. mark my words i will chalk a tanager one day.

and to think this time last year i didn't even know such amazing birds existed!
xj

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-eight - donkey

i'm not sure if you've noticed but most of my drawings are sidenotes to the videos and photos i want to show you. i have so many favourite animal videos that i end up using my drawing as a thinly veiled excuse to share them (actual sidenote: i keep saying unveal instead of unveil/reveal).

and thus, DONKEY:

© jem barratt

so now that business is out of the way, this is what i wanted to share:

day forty-seven - ground hornbill

yo!

© jem barratt

gotta go!
xj

day forty-three - cow

in primary school, cows were my favourite animals - so much so that i did a project on them and presented it on a milk carton. super cool.

© jem barratt

no offence to cows, but WHAT was i thinking? obviously i was oblivious of sun bears and chameleons and finches and red pandas at that time.

cows are pretty cool (and nutjobbish), but how could they have ever beat out this as my fave?
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 forty - lamb

BLAMB!

© jem barratt

facts about lambs:
- lambs are born with three legs. the growth of a fourth leg signifies them reaching sheephood
- their fleece is white as snow
- contrary to popular belief lambs will NEVER follow a mary - marys are their natural predators

if you have any queries not covered in my comprehensive fact-o-file above, feel free to email me, for i am obviously a great lamb expert.

xj

day thirty-nine - sparrow

today: a self portrait

© jem barratt

that's me alright. i love how many photos there are of sparrows clawing other birds, be it their face or their wings. feisty!

g'night.
xj

day thirty-seven - another tree frog

amphibians are in trouble! seriously, i know everything is, but still... go here to help.

© jem barratt

how dare i be so demanding when i can't even tell you what type of tree frog this is. fair enough. but really all frogs need help so their name is kind of irrelevant anyway.

well THIS is not a fun post. sorry about that! nature's not always funny you know (only mostly).

xj

day thirty-two - rabbit

i know we're meant to hate rabbits in australia, but they are still cute... so....

© jem barratt

nothing much more to add really. hopefully i can buy a new scanner tomorrow and draw way more with pencil.

rabbits ARE pests. they're just cute ones. so make sure you admire them as you wish myxomatosis upon their warrens.
xj