Untamed Artists Network

If you get a chance please have a look at this page. Stephen is an Australian wildlife artist and is currently working on a number of pieces including a king cheetah in oils and a bengal tiger in watercolour. One of our members, Alison Clark has studied with him. 

Enjoy! 

Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone saw the news today that a new species of big cat has been found in the jungles of Borneo? I was at work when I saw it and didn't get to listen but from what I saw they look like an amazing cat! I think I heard that there may be as many as 7000 in the wild!

Hi folks, I just wanted to take the time to remind all members that there is a forum on myspace where we can post new work, talk about various projacts and discuss publicity oor fundraising possibilities as they arise. 

Please make sure that you sigh up as it will help us all get to know each other a little more..

The group address is:  http://groups.myspace.com/untamedartists

Africa is an inspiring continent and I was really looking forward to returning this year to do something different – I volunteered at the Lion Park situated between Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa where they also breed the rare white lion. Apart from the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this ordinary Melbourne girl to work closely with lions and other big cats, I was eager to get some really good photos and wildlife experience to translate into paintings!

After joining up with the other volunteers we spent our first night in a stinky hotel in Pretoria, complete with bed bugs and bunks without ladders to get to the top bed. The staff were friendly and efficient but we were all more enthusiastic about leaving and going off to see the lions.

Eventually we arrived at the Lion Park and Ian, the manager, gave us an introduction to the place which included viewing a photograph of two Taiwanese tourists who had been killed by one of the lions, Big Boy, in 1997. A grisly scene indeed, not to be included in a painting! I don’t know if he was trying to warn us or shock us, perhaps a bit of both - the basic message was don’t get out of the car! He also showed us some more pleasing photos of the ‘stars’ of the Park, the trained lions they use for filming documentaries, commercials and movies and after two weeks we were lucky enough to see an early version of a Disney-like film they are shooting at the moment called “White Lion the Movie”. It will really be worth seeing when it comes out in about eighteen months.

A usual day consisted of rising in the freezing dawn (but what beautiful sunrises I saw every morning, another irresistible beauty to paint!) and meeting at the nursery by 8am to feed the cubs or clean up ‘Cub World’, where the public are allowed to pat the babies for two minutes at a time. There were quite a lot of volunteers so it was hard sometimes to have something to do as everyone wanted to get in and feed the cubs, so I spent some time picking up cigarette butts and collecting tickets. One thing we had to get used to quickly was the terrible stench in the nursery every morning before it was cleaned out. Not only do lions smell worse than dirty, wet dogs, they had rotting horse meat sitting on benches as an additional assault on the nostrils, but we soon got used to it and stopped feeling sick after a couple of days!

We bottle fed them at first using a mixture of cat crunchies soaked in boiling water, made into a mash with milk added until we had the right consistency. It was a bit chaotic until each cub was caught and drinking their own bottle. After about a week some of them progressed to bowls and we had to keep the peace so the more dominant ones didn’t attack the others and steal their breakfast. We all received some nice lion scratches and bites! There was also a baby hyena living with the lion cubs and he was always rolling in lion poo so no-one wanted to feed him!

Ohno the leopard cub was also in the nursery but he was much more powerful than the lions and we weren’t allowed to take him on our own. He is a real stunner, the most beautiful cat in the place and he knew it! When he played he would look at us to see if we were watching him (which we usually were) and become more excited when he knew he had our attention. As gorgeous as the lion cubs are, Ohno is lithe and athletic and had the movie-star good-looks. I clicked away with the camera hoping to get some decent shots of him to paint, taking pot-luck most of the time because he leapt around almost constantly unless he was in his little day enclosure which was dark and densely wired so no fingers could get through to be bitten off. The best time to photograph him was on the walk down to this enclosure from the nursery. Unfortunately I couldn’t do any sketches while working so getting to know them and taking the camera was essential.

After the morning feed some volunteers would be posted to giraffe duty, selling grass pellets to customers to feed the two giraffes, Purdy and Gambit. Their long, black tongues would wrap around the pellets and delicately scoop them into their mouths, never trying to bite or be nasty. They have the most beautiful eyes of any animal I have seen, probably worth a painting on their own. On quiet days giraffe duty was relaxing and we would just sit in the warm sun reading a book, waiting for customers and taking the chance to feed them ourselves. On busy days it wasn’t so good because Purdy and Gambit would get sick of pellets and wander off, while a constant stream of customers would come along wanting to buy pellets and it was difficult, if not impossible for us to get the animals to come back. How do you make a giraffe do anything like that? I’ve handled horses for 25 years but these towering ungulates are not the same. We didn’t even have a halter for the giraffes and they didn’t always seem to know where their legs were. I did try hitting them on the rump with a big stick, but it was ineffective and I didn’t want to upset them too much! One leg was the same height as me! A customer also told us how Purdy accidentally broke his wife’s ankle and dented their car…….

Those not on giraffe duty would go to Cub World where there were about 4 older cubs the public could touch, but not on the head or tail. Amazingly many people not only ignored this instruction but actually put their hands in the lions’ mouths and wondered why they were bitten! We would warn the same people repeatedly but on they went until a cub’s jaws clamped down on their fingers. By the second week the little babies we had been looking after were put in there and the poor things were terrified. Some had to be removed and taken back to the nursery they were so distraught. One day Tribe, the white cub, got his own back on a very naughty boy who was teasing him by biting his back. Call us mean, but our sympathy was with Tribe!

Of course I took my camera everywhere as photo opportunities were abundant but fleeting and the animals were very obliging in posing but not usually in being still!

On a few occasions we were taken out to the prides, a semi-open range where four prides of wilder lions lived (including Big Boy and his lionesses – he’s eighteen years old now and the lionesses are getting sick of him because he’s no longer much use to them. In the wild he would have died years ago). Being with the little ones for so long it was quite a surprise to see the adult lions up close, they were massive! I took some close-up shots (but from the vehicle of course!) and felt privileged to be so near to them. It was amazing to look a lion in the eye at close range, and even being in the protection of the bakkie it still sent a chill down my spine. Their eyes always look hungry when they look right at you. They get fed huge hunks of meat once a week and going along for this was an event in itself. While I did take many interesting shots of them feeding, they are not suitable for paintings.

Seeing the cheetahs up close was the fulfilment of another wish, they have been my favourites since childhood and are not vicious the way other big cats are. They are very graceful and beautiful, with a top speed of 100km/hour and I have some photos that will help me do them justice when I put them on canvas. Hearing them purr and seeing them ‘smooch’ with humans was truly awesome. Their fur feels softer than a lion’s and their dark amber eyes are hypnotising. Unfortunately for me, those volunteers who stayed longer than I did got to work and play with some new arrivals, two cheetah cubs.

I had done an oil painting of a white lion before I left Australia and took it with me to show the people at the Lion Park since they breed the white lion, but on my day off the tour lady asked me to bring it and took me to a gallery. The gallery owner bought it on the spot, which was a real highlight of the trip and an unexpected one!

I now have enough material and memories to keep me inspired and busy painting for years. I will always remember how it felt to be close to the big cats.

Some of you may have noticed the influx of new members coming on to join our network. I an honoured to have such an amazing group of artists coming together to serve this common goal. If any of you have events or projects you want us to know about let me know!

Yesterday saw the first outing for the Victorian members of the Untamed Artist Network with a photographic trip to Melbourne Zoo. The members in attendance were Alison Clark, Noel Clayton, Lisa Meaney and myself.

The main attractions were the new Sumatran tiger cubs. The cubs have settled in nicely to their surroundings and were full of energy, bounding around after Binjai, their mother.Photographing these animals proved to be quite a challenge for myself due to the low light of the rainforest surrounds but a little engenuity by Lisa showed that there was more than one way to catch these cats in action when she chose to record small video clips for study rather than photos.

 The orangutans also provided a great deal of enjoyment for the group as they swung through their newly built exhibit.

I think that the highlight for all of us would have been our close encounter with the pygmy hippo who decided to come right up to the glass and glide gracefully through the water in front of us. We all stared in amazement for ten minutes before any other patrons came through.

By the end of the day I'd taken more than 250 photos and everyone really enjoyed themselves.

Upon leaving the zoo we had the pleasure of going with Alison to see an exhibition by a group of artists who call themselves Fusi6n. The exhibition, About Face featured 36 massive portraits, 6 of each artist as the subject. The work was truly amazing to view and we had the added bonus to get the chance to talk to some of the artists.

By the time we all parted ways it was agreed that the day had been a roaring success!

Plans are already forming for our next outing...