Pattern making and a trip to Perth Zoo

Jim was up early today, to go to meet the running club at Brentwood.  This meant he was up at 6 am and I was awake and raring to go too.  Jim found the running club this time, and discovered they are fair weather runners - if the weather forecast is rain, they don't go.  This was why they were not at the meeting point last week.  Not quite like England, where if you did not run in the rain, you'd never go out! 

So I was up drawing pattern with honkey nuts and eucalyptus leaves.  I was more successful than ever before.  I managed to create a pattern that intersected nicely and did not have any obvious tram lines or areas of repeat.  This took me about 3 hours, and I have now got an image drawn on tracing paper, ready to expose onto a silkscreen tomorrow. 

On the basis of this success, I rewarded myself with a trip out on the bus ... to the zoo.  I paid a concession ticket for $18, on presentation of my student card.  I wanted to draw plants, but did not want to go all the way to Kings Park on 2 buses.  I started by drawing tesssellated forms in the palm tree trunks, where the old leaves have been removed. 

I looked at the lizards and snakes in the reptile house and was amazed at the patterns in the scales of the monitor lizards.  I'm starting to see pattern in so many places, where I would not have noticed it previously.  I was delighted to see koalas feeding on eucalyptus - the only time I've seen them before, they were asleep, which apparently they are for 85% of the time.  Eucalyptus is low nutrient and needs a lot of digestion, so koalas mostly eat and sleep. 

Koala looking for dinner

Koala stretching for a tasty mouthful. 
I could smell the eucalyptus as he munched it.

The native Australia section of the zoo has a walkway through the kangaroo enclosure, with clear signs not to stray from the footpath in the kangaroos areas.  This is where the behaviour of people really stuns me.  A smallish kangaroo bounced onto the footpath.  Parents pushed their child in a pushchair really close to it, and started taking photos.  Then a group of parents and several children approach the kangaroo and started stroking it.  The kangaroo is now surrounded, and leans back on its tail and gives a sharp kick to a boy.  At this point a young couple, taller than everyone else, come alongside to walk past.  The kangaroo stands up really tall, and tries to give a stronger kick, which fortunately misses.  The couple walk on past quickly.  And the children and parents still try to gather round to stroke the kangaroo!   It's a wild animal, not a pussy cat!  Why don't people admire the animals, but keep their distance?  Fortunately when the kangaroo tries to kick an adult, the group start to disperse, and everything calms down.

I walked up to the cockatoo breeding aviary and sat down to draw some plants.  When all the people have dispersed, and I am just sitting quietly, I can hear a parrot sitting in the corner of the aviary, cracking sunflower seeds.  And once it is really quiet, the black cockatoos behind me start having a screaming match with the red-tailed cockatoos in the aviary in front of me.

And as the afternoon wears on, the clouds start increasing, it threatens rain and I decide to head home. A truly lovely day.