Sydney Sealife

On my last day in Australia, I had a few hours to waste in between check­ing out of the hotel and getting the train to the airport. I was stay­ing right next to the Aquar­i­um, so I went there. I didn’t visit the local zoo, because it looks grim, and I’m gener­ally against city zoos with large anim­als who don’t have enough space to roam. The aquar­i­um isn’t the cruel kind with large sea mammals, so I felt ok about going there. It’s mostly small fish and coral, with some rays, sharks and small penguins.

St Kilda, Melbourne

Here’s a few photos from St Kilda in Melbourne. It’s a fancy coastal suburb of Melbourne filled with inter­war bunga­lows, with a pier and esplanade. In the 1960s it was run down and where all the hippies lived, but is now back to being fancy. I went there because there are wild penguins living on the pier and I hoped to see some. Unfor­tu­nately I didn’t manage to spot any that day.

Kerguelen Islands Prints

I’ve done some prints of this picture I drew of the Kerguëlen Islands off the coast of Antarc­tica. Noth­ing there but penguins, cabbages and the odd french scient­ist. What could be more delight­ful? They are avail­able in two sizes- A4 for £7 + post­age and A3 for £20 + post­age (the small ones will be sent flat, the large rolled into a tube), and are prin­ted on 250 gsm semi-gloss paper with a white border. Avail­able now from the shop.

Kerguelen Islands

Recently I was look­ing up some­thing on a map, and my eyes were drawn to the Kerguelen Islands at the bottom. They seemed quite substan­tial, yet I’d never heard of them. It turns out they belong to France, are unin­hab­ited except for a few scient­ists, and are full of penguins and cabbages. Sail­ors used to stop off there to have a grim cabbage feast to fend off scurvy. Here is a lonely penguin in the cabbage fields. I will never have anoth­er reas­on to draw that. The picture is avail­able as a print and vari­ous other items on Soci­ety 6.

Death and the Penguin

I set myself a project recently of doing mock book covers. First up is Death and the Penguin, by Andrey Kurkov. I did both English and Russi­an versions of the cover. I’m not sure how success­ful it is, though. The map I used in the collage is of Kiev.

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