After selling many a sloth Christmas card over the years, I felt it was time to expand my Etsy empire and introduce a new critter to the collection. I've been a closet penguin aficionado for most of my adult life, and it seemed like the right time to get out there and paint some penguins!
Gentoo Penguins - my favourite kind!
These smart little birds are so much fun to draw, although it did feel a little odd painting ice and snow during the sweltering Melbourne heat! In saying that, we do actually have penguins here in Australia, so perhaps they are more seasonally appropriate than in the Northern Hemisphere! I love visiting the colony of Little Blues who hang out at the end of the pier in St Kilda.
A collection of different penguin species. Bottom centre is the Little Blue penguin - a native to Australia!
After getting all of those penguin paintings out of my system, it was time to put them into context. My long-suffering boyfriend endured an afternoon's worth of corny penguin jokes, suggestions such as, "I'm Dreaming of a Black and White Christmas", "Rockhopping Around the Christmas Tree", and, "It's Toboganning to Look a Lot Like Christmas", were all met with appropriate groans. In the end we whittled it down to two jokes which have been given the Pencil Party treatment and turned into cards:
Those Gentoo penguins put to use on a corny Christmas card!
And some cheerful Emperors catching their Christmas dinner.
You can p-p-p-p-p-p-pick up some for yourself online, just head over to my Etsy store Pencil Party to spread some penguin love this Christmas!
Penguin food - bit different to Turkey eh!
