I was pleasantly surprised by the animals I discovered for the letter Q art challenge.
Aside from Quail I’d not heard of the others and will hopefully remember them as useful scrabble words!
- There are the cute Quokka, one of the smallest Wallaby species in the world and found in Australia. They are a bit like small kangaroos.
- Then there is Quoll, a marsupial found in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Tasmania. It’s a nocturnal animal hunting at night, although unlike most nocturnal mammals it likes to rest in the sun during the day, rather than hiding somewhere dark. Apparently known as a ‘native cat’, with what I think is a vaguely similar resemblance!
- Lastly there are Quetzals. These are beautiful birds found in the tropical rain forests of Central America. The male is the most striking with a tail that can grow to 1 meter in length! The females don’t have such a long tail and are slightly duller in colour. They nest in tree holes, carving the hole out themselves.
I’ve chosen to paint the Quetzal on a storage jar, including both male and female.
He needs some more work. Having photographed it I think the male looks like he’s reading a red book!
Have a lovely weekend and see you next week for the letter R. As always I’m open to suggestions on what you’d like me to paint.
Many decades ago in the city where I lived, there was a radio station that had daily contests to come up with animals and plants whose names started with certain letters. It was way before Wikipedia and Google, so it was much more difficult than it is now.
Yes, technology has given us instant access to vast amounts of information. We relied on books in those days & I do have an ancient animal encyclopaedia that I refer to as well as the internet. I’m old fashioned & still like a book!
You should see my house. It’s full of books, plants, and a cat.
Me too, even though my cat tries to eat some of the plants! Thanks for commenting on my blog, it’s good to get some interaction.
I might have asked you before, but are you selling your work on any big Internet sites? I’m looking at Etsy, OpenSky, RedBubble, Zazzle, Fine Art America, SmugMug, and Artfire, as well getting Photographic Art set up on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.
I sell on Etsy and Folksy, under the shop name Animal Glass Designs. Just joined linkedin but it is hard juggling too many sites! Twitter is my favourite social media