The Plight of the Parakeets

Human encroachment on natural habitats is a problem that seems to get worse every day. I am part of the Artist Warriors for Wildlife Group and this this week I was saddened to hear about the plight of the White-Winged parakeets in Mantua.

2-3 years ago the “Avenida das Torres” (Avenue of the Towers) was constructed in the city of Manaus (in the Amazon) taking down many of the native trees and palms where White-winged parakeets and other birds both nested and had dormitories for sleeping. In search of new homes, the birds found a group of Imperial Palms in front of a luxury condominium complex. As the residents did not like the chattering, singing and socializing of the birds, they managed to have huge plastic nets put over the trees, imprisoning the birds and many of them died. Although official reports claim the nets were to protect the trees from the birds now, just this past Thursday, 200 of the parakeets have been found dead, most probably from poisoning, 40 birds have been collected to analyze the cause of death.

Anyway luckily there were big protests about this issue a few days ago and now the authorities have agreed to take the nets off the trees. So that is a step in the right direction.

My painting of the White-Winged Parakeets is in alcohol inks on Yupo paper....somehow I wanted to show the great colorful clouds of them in the air. I wish them all the best ......

Let us all try to respect the earth and live in harmony with nature. 

Linking up to Paint Party Friday  and Sunday Sketches so come and join in the fun!

Babirusa

This week my nature painting group painted the Babirusa. This remarkable curly tusked pig is found nowhere else in the world except in undisturbed rain forests of Sulawesi. Sulawesi is Indonesia's fourth largest island (175,000 km2). It is something of a "forgotten island" in that the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra receive much more attention from conservationists. However Sulawesi has an amazing diversity of totally unique species, of which the Babirusa is probably the most enigmatic.

The Babirusa is amazing in a number of ways. Firstly the tusks are the upper canine teeth, which in males grow upwards out of the snout and curl round towards the forehead. Further the Babirusa fight by rearing up on their hind legs and "dance" - it is quite amazing to see this in the wild apparently.

The unique Babirusa and the Nantu Forest are facing grave threats from destructive forest clearance and also illegal poaching for their meat. They face a real risk of extinction in the near future, given that their total world population is only about 5000 individuals, yet they are poorly known about worldwide. The Babirusa's tusks have in fact inspired artists from long ago, being featured in Balinese artwork.

I was actually inspired by these fascinating 40,000 year old babirusa cave paintings  to create my own!

Modern Cave Painting of a Babirusa, mixed media

I actually started the painting with two pigs' heads superimposed over each other with one upside down (hence the double set of tusks) and the image then morphed into a Babirusa hybrid. Here's my Modern Cave Painting of a Babirusa, mixed media (gesso, watercolor, alcohol ink, colored pencil, pastels).


Linking up with Paint Party Friday!


Happy Painting!