London Zoo 2014 part 2

Yes, I should figure out how to get a pension, not die as a struggling artists, how to get a free haircut etc  but I escaped to the Zoo instead and cuddled with a goat, checked out the new sloth baby and all the baby penguins and got completely mesmerised by the cheetahs and their long, slim, gracious bodies built to run - you can really see it when they move.

I have been to the Zoo a few times and there's always something different happening every time, I never seen their albino porcupine Blondie before, and the aardvarks normally always sleep but this time I was face to face with one having dinner while the penguins thought it was to hot and weren't really up for showing off as they normally are. This was also the first time that I saw the cheetahs and the pygmy hippo's, I think that they most be a new edition to the zoo. The hippo's looked very content but the cheetahs seemed bored, but maybe they are only there temporarily and will get a bigger enclosure soon? The Zoo's has improved a lot of the enclosures lately, the tigers have a much bigger space and so does the penguins and some of the owl's but in an ideal world they would all be out free and we humans wouldn't let greed make us self destruct but hey ho, I still have to confess that I really enjoy getting so close to all these amazing animals and sometimes even interact with them, our planet is very cool.

































And look at this, a giant walking stick eating!

The Russian adventures continues, now with Russian Illustrator MinaMilk

I exhibited in Moscow and I did so with two great Russian illustrators and this little blog post will focus on one of them, MinaMilk. Mina and I studied illustration together at Camberwell College of Arts here in London and became very good friends and has worked on various projects together and I can still remember the first time that MinaMilk showed her drawings in a class, even the teachers were speechless, she grabs a pen, sips on some coffee and it looks like she is doodling but she is drawing up little pieces of art in a few seconds, let me show you some of her work which often is quite sexual, hand drawn and coloured in with everything from water-colours to tea bags;

MinaMilk's dream project is to walk into the wilderness and work with wild animals and make a book/performance/exhibition afterwards and her big passion is cats and she knows more about various species then I think all of us together and is dreaming about discovering new ones in the wild and recently went on a trip to Sri Lanka where she saw leopards in the wild.

I asked MinaMilk about the difference between living and working as a Illustrator in London compared to Russia and for a long time she has complained that it is very hard to get good art material as sketchbooks and good paper in Russia, I thought that she was exaggerating as I know how picky she is with her paper but after visiting Russia and some art shops I know that she unfortunately is right so we are trying to figure out a way for me to send her sketch books - which sounds easy but as most packages to Russia "get's lost", its actually not that easy at all… MinaMilk herself explains it like this;

"Of-course there is! In London it's less common that you have to explain that illustration actually is a profession and yes, that you want to get paid for it. In Russia there is more money but less chance to find it."

MinaMilk works with editorial illustration as well as fashion illustration, shop window displays, cards and stationary, products and installations. To see more of MinaMilk's work click here

Zoology museum, Moscow Part 2

Here are some more images from my visit at the amazing Zoology museum in Moscow. Moscow felt very polluted, before I went there I used to think that London is polluted but now London feels like a fresh walk in the Alps! My friends said that they have some amazing sunsets in Moscow, pink and purple and all kinds of colours but its not very amazing as those colours come from pollution… I had a really good time though and got addicted to Russian strawberry and mint toothpaste and Nikolaj's pie's - they have three pie cafe's in Moscow, very good ;)

Time for tea.

Zoology museum, Moscow Part 1

Wow, from Children's room monster vinyls to sinister looking images from my last museum visits…

During my trip to Moscow and St Petersburg in Russia I also went to the Zoology museum in Moscow and once again I was blown away, they had three different sections - the alcohol section with various species in jars; shelf after shelf with various snakes, lizards and fish stored in glass jars - the skeleton section with everything from fish, to elk, mammoth and giraffe skeletons - and then the last and third one with all the stuffed mammals and birds. The collection is very impressive and I wish I could show you more but it was dark in the museum and very hard to get good crisp photos without a tripod but if you have the chance to ever visit then please do, the place is amazing.

The museums bird collection is enormous and I wish I had photos to prove my point but for now these will have to do. The museum also had a very large collection of insects and flies, some so small that you could hardly see them.





PS. Try and find the walking sticks!



PS. Thanks for the comments, its nice to get some feedback now and then and to know that there's someone out there dropping by and taking their time to read this blog, thanks! ;)

Moscow - The State Darwin Museum Part 2

Well, hello you. Look at those teeth!

Ever since I was a kid I have loved watching documentaries about animals and nature but still today I find out about new species of animals and the mind-blowing diversity on this planet, some of these guys I had no idea even existed and I wish I would have written down there Russian names and asked my friends to translate but I was to excited in the museum to even think of that, maybe you know the English name for these little guys?






Some of them look like horror film creatures.

Moscow: Darwin's Museum Part 1

MinaMilk knows that my favourite museum in London and Stockholm, is the Natural History museum, so when I came to Moscow she immediately took me to State Darwin's museum - and I was completely blown away.

State Darwin's museum explains the theory and work of Charles Darwin and focuses on the evolution and how animals have evolved and adapted, there was unfortunately not any signs with information in English which was a minus but the museum is mind-blowing and has a large collection of animals and I really liked how they displayed them. Here is a small exhibition about the various kinds of guinea pigs that made me laugh quite a bit as these normally quite cute guinea pigs look like an army of evil fur balls or what do you think?





The next exhibition is showing how wolfs were domesticated and evolved into one of our favourite pets, the dog. I like how the museum also is displaying art in the exhibitions that shows the animals behaviour, habitats and evolution.




That's it for now.

I am the Zoo part 2

I love tigers, they always seem to sleep when I visit the Zoo though, I would love to see them awake next time, they are one of my favourite animals and these Sumatran tigers are gorgeous and unfortunately there are only about 300 left in the world, very sad.

No offence to Tigers but I have to confess that after this Zoo visit I am obsessed with Gorillas, this guy was flirting with us and kept posing and they all seemed so unbelievably humble and so much in their behaviours reminded me of us humans, just look at his face expressions while watching us watching him. I am a big Gorilla fan after this Zoo visit and if you want to become a Gorilla fan to, just look at this film where Koko the gorilla meets Robin Williams and plays with him.

It was hard to take photos in the Zoo, most animals are behind fences or scratched glass that makes reflections when you try to photograph them so I am afraid the images aren't that amazing. And by the way, people who use flash in the Zoo piss me off, it clearly says every where that it scares the animals.

These aardvarks where sleeping tight together like a yin and yang symbol and I wish I could get better photos of them, they look like cartoon characters and are absolutely gorgeous and even though I find it sad with Zoo's I am at the same time very split about it. Zoo's do a lot of conservation work and I am glad to get a chance to see all these amazing creatures, of-course I would prefer if they were roaming around in their natural habitats and I was a multi millionaire who could travel and see them. I am wondering though if Zoo's make people more interested in animals and that maybe people start caring more about gorilla's and tigers etc after seeing them? I don't know, talking shit and need to get back to work...

This picture is blurry but I had to show it, this armadillo interacted with me and tried to come as close to the glass as possible but couldn't quite reach and then he stood up on his back legs and looked at me and I honestly got a bit touched and wanted to adopt him or her...

That's it from the Zoo.

I am at the Zoo

Today I went to London Zoo. It was empty.

No, I lied, but I photographed this empty space above, something about the colours, the light and the feeling of the space that I wanted to capture - and guess what, two men came up and stood there by my side and watched the space, looking for what invisible animal I was photographing and it took a while until they realised, there was none to be found and that I was just some weirdo not realising that it is the cages with animals in that I should aim my camera towards.

There is so much to see at London Zoo that I never managed to see it all in one day, probably as a result of me being a geek who is so fascinated by animals that I can stand and watch a gorilla eat for an hour… anyway, it was such a great day, the sun was shining in London for once and most of the animals were out enjoying the warm day.

My camera also worked for 4 hours, hallelujah, and just when I spotted two Malayan tapirs swimming not even a meter away from me - my camera died. But I managed to get some snaps from my day and here they are;






The penguins were very curious and came very close to the glass, having a Zoo of their own where they were checking us out.