Sunday, November 23, 2008

New Zealand Birds

From Paintings


Something very unique to our adopted country is its fauna. Or lack thereof. There are no native land mammals in this green and soggy land, which made for some avian anomalies as other species rushed to fill the niches that little critters would normally occupy.

That gives you birds like the Kiwi or the (now extinct) Moa and a whole bunch of really interesting and unique (and quite common) birds like the Kereru, Tui, and Pukeko.

Our family periodically paints together on little 5 inch by 5 inch canvases by picking a theme and doing our own individual interpretations.  The first time we did this was back in the States when we did variations on a picture of a coffee mug that Joanne picked out.  Just yesterday we did a "birds of New Zealand" session and came up with the pictures you see above.

The artists are (from left to right) Joanne, Haley, Steve, Zoe.

The top row are (from left to right) Morepork, Kiwi, Pukeko, Tui.

3 comments:

Cathy Ezrailson, Science Education, University of South Dakota said...

What a lovely idea, Joanne -- family renditions of a theme. And, you are so talented, all of you! Thanks for allowing us to see.
Love you.
Cathy

Brandie said...

Your family has some serious painting skills!

Of course Joanne picked the More Pork. :)

Jacob said...

Nice work all! I especially like the third-from-left coffee painting, excellent lighting work.