24/06: MONKEY BUSINESS

I feel Yucky today.      Daughter, Daughter's partner and Grand-daughter Sophie-Louise stayed for the weekend and despite the grim forecasts we were able to have a BBQ on Saturday afternoon (eating indoors though) and a trip to the Zoo yesterday.

We spent over 6 hours at Howletts Zoo because Sophie likes Monkeys and Howletts has rather a lot of them!    I had a sore throat and headache for most of the day which developed overnight into a grotty cold/aches pains etc so I've done very little today except 'comfort eat' it seems.   Couldn't drum up enthusiasm for anything.   But ... I hope this is just a Summer Cold and will be on its way out tomorrow.   I need to crack on with artwork

I'm not a 'monkey enthusiast' - I prefer big cats and other wild creatures.   I think its the similarity to humans that worries me about monkeys (in fact some monkeys we saw yesterday were more human than some of the people I've seen on the streets - or perhaps I shouldn't say that) LOL

This mum was very protective of her baby and shielded it from view most of the time - this photo is taken between the crisscross wires in the fencing, and through a dirty glass window - but I just wanted to show the hands/fingernails - I find this sooo spooky

I thought this little chap was very cute ....

until he yawned and showed those HUGE teeth

and this one had had enough of the great outdoors and was trying to get back into the 'indoor cage' area.  Loved his expression

Bad hair day

I have more than 50 photos of gorillas so, despite what I said earlier about not being a 'monkey person' I think I have so many ref pics that I'll have to work from one or two of them soon. 

I've used a programme to downsize the photos and add a watermark but it seems to have done something strange to the colour quality in places ... never mind - I think there's enough detail for the Blog page.

hmmmm  colour is definitely much better without the watermark.   I just wanted to protect some of these images as I'll probably work from them later in the year.  I'm determined to enter a couple of wildlife art competitions - I always miss the deadlines through being busy with commissions but will be making changes this year

Every family has one member like this I think !!!

Again colour has gone funny but the originals are clear so I have more than enough detail to produce several monkey/gorilla drawings

and of course this isn't a monkey its a lemur but very cute.   She had a baby which wrapped itself around her middle and clung on for dear life as she was racing round the enclosure.   It was close to feeding time and everybody was getting a bit excited

and our own little monkey - Sophie Louise

I also took lots of elephant pictures - Howletts has a large family group with varying ages and some of the younger members were being very naughty/playful yesterday afternoon .... lovely to watch them interacting.   I'll save them for another post though