When my dad first moved to East Africa in 1952 he, like many other white people over there, became one of Africa’s hunters. It didn’t take him long to realize what was happening to the wildlife and he soon turned to the camera to document rather than hunt and became a passionate advocate of wildlife. This was in the late 50s and early 60s so if everyone else followed suit, we’d have already worked out what we needed to know by 1970.

Dad, back in the late 50s in East Africa – somewhere

It obviously didn’t happen though because we are decimating wildlife at unprecedented rates despite a slew of conservation societies around the world trying to educate us not to.

So what is happening, how are mucking things up and why aren’t we fixing things?

Of course, the problems run much deeper than saying “take care of the environment and the animals in it”. Just off the top of my head we have land loss and degradation, pollution, bush meat trade, souvenier collecting, removal of major predators which causes grazers to flourish and destroy the land through overeating, illegal fishing and hunting, legal fishing and hunting (which can be managed well but in some countries are NOT).

Add to this our consumer society where we absolutely must have the latest whizz bang thing just to keep up with the Joneses or to feel like our life has meaning, and of course the built in obsolescence which most modern electronic and mechanical devices have. Let’s face it, our repairmen have become fitters because it’s cheaper and easier to fit a new one and throw the broken one away rather than repair it. You only have to look on the side of the suburban and country roads to see the discarded TVs and computer monitors to illustrate this point.

I’m one of those who likes to keep things upbeat but when I read that awesome wildlife artist Eric Wilson‘s 2007 blog post about the imminent demise of the tiger, it really hit home. There are massive efforts underway to prevent this animal going the way of the dodo and many other extinct species and yet even he, a man who cares deeply for this animal and is part of those efforts, has just about given up hope.

So why is it that we feel defeated? Here’s an example. I routinely try to turn lights off and use as little fuel as possible yet BHP is planning to expand the Roxby Downs mine in South Australia, my home state, and has stated that they will need to use one million litres of diesel per day for the next six years simply to remove the overburden of this expanded part of the mine (overburden is the rubble that needs to be removed before you even start to get to the valuable bit). This is the equivalent of doubling the amount of cars on Adelaide’s roads. I’m not even going to comment here about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing since mining brings prosperity to a depressed economy, but it goes to show how little the caring individual can do. (Of course, responsibly run mines can be a good thing – we wouldn’t want to be hypocrites since we all use the products that come from mining. However, many mines around the world whose products we use everyday are not run responsibly – what is in your computer and mobile phone if not coltan, the ore that is routinely mined in the Congo and then stolen by surrounding countries? This same mining practice that has displaced whole neighborhoods and decimated their income so that they now have to resort to the bush meat trade so they can live. And what do they kill? Well, they live where the mountain and lowland gorillas are and that’s what they kill!)

However, just because we feel like we can’t do much doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. We are the example for the next generation. We are the people who can bring about change but in order to do that we need to become engaged. There is no room for complacency in the fight to keep our wild heritage. We need it more than it needs us. Maybe my generation will scrape by but subsequent ones won’t. And I don’t want to just scrape by while magnificent species vanish. Some people say “Imagine being the generation that had to explain to their kids why the tiger is no longer with us” but I’d rather say “Imagine being the generation that saved the tiger”!! Let’s not end up with the chimps “turning back in anger” as in my pastel sketch below.

“Turn back in anger”

My son is a great one for trawling through the internet looking at cute animals and he told me of one that was rescued by someone, a stray that would surely have died. I decided to tell him my own little story.

My dad was as bad as me for not being able to see an animal suffer. We already had a dog and didn’t really want another. However, he pulled into his garage at work at the railways in Nairobi in Kenya and heard a whimpering coming from the back of the garage. He went over to see this young dog, older than a puppy but still young. It was what people called a “shenzi”. which is the Swahili word for savage, useless, uncouth, barbarous, uncivilized and also half breed. We know them as mongrels or mutts. This one tried to growl at my dad, a sort of “leave me to die in peace” growl, because die it surely would have. It was totally emaciated. He backed off, went and did his day’s work and decided to see what the dog was like in the evening, thinking he’d have to remove the body. The dog was one of the thousands of strays that wandered the streets of Nairobi and she was in terrible condition. However, she was still curled up in the same spot when he went back and this time he managed to stroke her. Well, that was it! He had to see if she could be rescued. He put her in the back of his car and came to school to pick me up on his way home.

She could barely stand up and when I saw her I instantly fell in love. She was so skinny all her ribs were not only showing but were extremely prominent. A healthy dog’s back is arched upwards but her’s hung in a concave fashion with no strength.

We took her home and wondered what our Alsatian would do. No need to worry, Gina was good as gold. We fed them both and the most amazing thing happened – Tessa, our new dog, scoffed all her food and Gina stood back and allowed Tessa to move on to her own bowl. It was incredible and I barely believe it even now, forty years later.

We thought Tessa had eaten too much but she survived the night. Bit by bit she got her strength back and the true athlete was finally revealed. She was a gorgeous dog – I love mongrels – and she had a grateful nature that seemed to say “Yes, I know what I was and I know it was you who saved me”. I’ve had some great dogs in my time, got one right now in fact, but Tessa was the best. It’s not just a guy reminiscing about his youth and the pets he had. She was truly special.

And what of Gina, the dog who gave Tessa her own food on that first night? Yes, she was pretty darn special too. Here they both are with our tame lawn mower, Bambi the duiker.

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Story #2

A farmer sold up and moved. He had a boxer dog which he gave to us as he could no longer look after it. This was a brute of a thing, a very masculine guard dog, fiercely protective of its territory. We had about an acre of land in Nakuru, near the iconic lake of the same name, home to millions of flamingos, but this acre wasn’t enough for Dan the boxer. He used to go nuts when people walked along the street past our property and one day he ran out there and took a chunk out of a guy’s leg. Poor bloke was only walking home from the duka (shop). My mum was mortified and sat this guy down, apologising profusely explaining that it wasn’t really our dog and it was used to a much bigger property. She patched his leg up all the while listening to this guy’s voice, stuck on repeat saying “great guard dog, great guard dog”. Far from being indignant, he was actually impressed with Dan.

So you’d think Dan would be someone to watch out for around the rest of our menagerie of strange animals. Not so! He loved our Mackinders Eagle Owl. And it loved him!

Here’s my latest piece, a small scratchboard sketch of a Cape Buffalo, and I’m currently working on a series of ‘in your face’ kangaroos, along the lines of my previous emu series

My dad worte a book about East African reptiles and amphibians and if he had lived longer, he was going to write a second book called “Not only Elephants”. He was of the same opinion as me and this book was going to be dedicated to the animals that people often missed like shrews, zorillas, tortoises, rock hyrax and so many others. Tourists used to come to East Africa in search of the big five (elephant, black rhino, leopard, lion and buffalo – grouped together because they were the most dangerous animals to hunt) and in their fascination of these large animals, they often missed so much beauty that flashed by them as they motored along in their zebra striped wildlife viewing vehicles (painted in stripes more for the appeal to the tourists than the camouflage they afforded the vehicle).

I was in a similar vehicle recently, and some of my fellow occupants would be staring into the distance for a sighting of an elephant or leopard whilst missing lilac breasted rollers and malachite kingfishers. They would look at me as if I was mad as I turned over stones looking for lizards, scorpions and snakes. Ok, maybe I am mad but look at the smaller creatures in our world and I defy anyone to prove to me that the larger creatures are more wonderful.

Thus, I also believe it’s our duty as wildlife artists to research and educate people about these animals. I’ve recently been challenged to move towards the less fashionable animals so here are a couple of new pieces. Meerkats are quite popular nowadays, in part due to that amazing TV series “Meerkat Manor”. Here’s my take on a meerkat looking out for predators. I’ve included specks of dirt on the meerkat’s head to show that, whilst they are always alert for danger, they are constantly digging for food and shelter.

And an even less fashionable animal, an iconic Australian species. The grey kangaroo isn’t depicted too often in art simply because they look so cute and therefore artists shy away from them. I do too but I managed to coax one to come right up to my face and I caught this distorted “pleased to meet you” kind of look.

“Total Protection”

The second piece is a young zebra trotting through the water after its mum in a piece called “Water Baby”. It’s from a zebra at the waterhole at Okaukuejo.

“Water Baby”

So why is Etosha a strange place? Well, it’s an extremely dry place. It has a vast salt pan which is eerie and beautiful. The park has very little precipitation and as such it doesn’t support a lot of the animals you’d expect. It has no hippo, no buffalo and no crocodiles. Nip across the border into Botswana and in the Okavango Delta or Chobe National Park you’ll encounter as many hippos, buffalo or crocodiles as you might wish to see. Here’s a croc I photographed at Chobe. Believe it or not, this is in the wild and I’m not using a zoom. I’m literally a metre away from this large croc. However, I’m in a boat and it isn’t. It’s also just been fast alseep and is simply releasing heat through it’s open jaws so I’m neither being brave nor foolhardy.

So what’s going on in Etosha? You’d expect, with all that water in my pieces of art, to see all of the missing animals. No, these are man made waterholes, specifically created from boreholes to draw the animals to them in large numbers so we can get a good look at them. It works too. There were so many elephants at Halali, scores of zebra coming to drink all day at Okaukuejo, and at another waterhole, Namutoni, the best you can come to seeing a large predator is the python that swims there yet the air is thick with birdlife.

Is Etosha worth the trip? You bet it is! Not only do you get to see an abundance of wildlife at these waterholes, but if you venture out into the arid areas, you’ll see plenty from little dikdiks to the gorgeous lilac breasted roller, male oryx sparring for dominance, lion and many other animals. If your main love is monkeys however, you’ll be disappointed. There are none at all. In fact the campground pests aren’t monkeys here but go-away birds, red-billed hornbills and jackals – what a fabulous camping experience when those are considered pests!!

Me on the quiet and eeire Etosha Pan

My photo of it has caught some glare here and there unfortunately but you get the idea.

Below is the start of the demo of “Wall of Stripes”

If you go to the menu above, “About Me” and then “Publications”, I will be putting up a montage of the whole article.

Happy New Year to you all

So it’s been with great delight that I’ve watched the International Society of Scratchboard Artists take shape. In a way I can claim a small part of this as a legacy item.

About a year or so ago, I was hearing a lot of scratchboard artists complain that there was never any category for us to enter our art into in exhibitions and competitions around the world. We were always lumped in with something else like ‘works on paper’ or ‘paintings’ or ‘drawing’, and even occasionally told that scratchboard would be better off being entered into a craft show. Now I’m not having a go at crafts here but scratchboard needed to take its rightful place as a fine art medium.

I spent a short time thinking about this problem and about one hour writing a basic manifesto of why we should create a society. That was it. I had no idea how to start from that point, other than asking people for help.

Well, what happened next? Stacks of scratchboard artists agreed with me and a group of seven from around the world put their hands up to help me do the donkey work. This involved some very clever artists writing by-laws, a policy manual, setting up a website, working out levels and fee structures, getting the whole thing incorporated and pursuing non profit status, organizing bank accounts and writing newsletters.

What has happened as a result? Well, we have a whole host of members now. This is not a Facebook group which you can join, or someone joins you without even asking you (grrr), this is serious! This involves someone applying, paying money and being juried into the society. We also have an exhibition venue and date for 2012 which is very exciting. It will be at the Arthouse Gallery in Glen Ellen, California. The show opening will be July 7, 2012. This is in the heart of wine country in California and I will be making the trip from Australia for this with my family.

So how did all this happen? The people who really made all this happen were Lorna Hannett our president, Cathy Sheeter our exhibition director, Ken Mcfarlane the man who made the lawyers bend over backwards for us, Sue Rhodes our webmaster, Sandra Willard our secretary, and Diana Lee who pulled off the coup of locating our inaugural exhibition and who has promised to show me around her home state (I never forget a promise hint hint). Also Natalie Langkopf edited the first issue of our member newsletter and it was an absolute ripper! All of these good people have volunteered hours and hours of time, effort and passion, along with being fine artists themselves.

So, if you have a chance, come along to the exhibition. If I’m flying in from Australia, anyone can get there from anywhere. Better still, apply to be a member and then have a go at exhibiting in the show.

Either way, think about your own legacy. Every little, or big, thing you do is part of your legacy. Who do you touch?

This article below was published in the November edition of Fine Art and Decorative Painting magazine. One of our master scratchboard artists Judith Edwards-White wrote the article and it contains one of her images, one of our president’s (Lorna) and one of Diana’s, and also includes two of mine (though technically ten, since “The Birdy Bunch” is a montage of nine individual scratchboards).

I started it before I went and built up a portion of the right hand side (being left handed and not wanting to smudge, I generally work this way).

This next one is where it was when I took it to Brisbane, cradling it carefully in my lap on the plane.

And now I started working in front of 29 people. I must admit, I like things like this to be interactive and the crowd was brilliant. They asked excellent questions and generally had fun which made the two hours go extremely quickly. It was free for them and I was very surprised to see that almost all of them were still there at the end.

I explained how I work from a grid which I create in an editing program (in this case ‘Gimp’, image editing software) and then draw an actual grid on a piece of paper the same size as the pastel paper I will eventually use. After drawing the main features of the boy I then transfer this to my Art Spectrum Colourfix pastel paper with the aid of white transfer paper.

I talked about choosing colours to work on. Here, the boy has beautifully rich skin and a Terra Cotta base is a really good choice. I can then allow this colour to do a lot of the work for me.

As you can see, despite working from right to left, I also use paper to stop my hand from smudging.

That’s where I finished in Brisbane. Time was up and I’ve been flat out for the last month on other things but finally found some time to get back to it. Sorry to the folks who attended for the delay but the next steps take it to completion.

What you can’t see so well here is that I actually go over the Terra Cotta colour with a Terra Cotta coloured pastel to create a ‘base’ for me to work on. For some reason, this seems to work with me. I seem to be able to blend the colours better and get the results I want. I do a lot of finger blending and Art Spectrum’s Colourfix paper is perfect for this, being a sanded finish. It’s rough on the fingers but I just tell myself to ‘toughen up’!

I’m using a background that is dark behind the light part of his head and light behind the dark part. I’ve also taken him out of the schoolyard where I met him because the background was ugly.

I’ve used pastel sticks (mostly Rembrandts but I’m not picky) for the background and pastel pencils for the boy.

And finally the finished portrait

I like to work with people who exude character. In this case, this kid was simply begging to be painted and I hope I’ve done him justice.

Finally, a big thank you not only to Discount Art Warehouse but also to Maureen, who I had just met at the demo, and her husband Lexi who took me back to the airport in a massive thunderstorm. Great people!!

And finally, funny story. I had a box of pastels in my hand luggage. Naturally these went though the x-ray machine at the airport. The guy checking them seriously had me open the box to check that they weren’t bullets! I mean seriously – do these look like bullets?? (I’ve tried to replicate an x-ray in ‘Gimp’ editing software). I guess I must look a bit dodgy!