The Native NZ Alphabet

 A few years ago my youngest son Felix moved into his own room. His older brother has a mural on his wall, a race car bed and a lego storage basket on a pulley system. I wanted Felix to have something to make his room special though the bar was set very high. One of his nicknames is ‘frog’ so I began drawing the letter ‘F’ with the intention of creating a detailed and beautiful name sign for him filled with native animals and plants.

 At this stage you could only describe his sleeping patterns as terrible so my ability to get stuck into any big paintings was limited to the evenings when I was interrupted by his wake ups and was feeling shattered from sleep deprivation or during the day with my ‘helper’ arranging my paints and occasionally dipping his hands in. I was feeling quite disheartened and missing painting but also not willing to commit to beginning anything as the frustration of not getting the time was worse. I discovered through creating Felix’s name that small pieces of art were achievable and very enjoyable. I could make decent progress in a few hours which was so satisfying. Pen and paint is a medium I hadn’t dabbled in for many years and I was pleasantly surprised at the results.

 My older son Jonty became really interested in finding the creatures and plants in each letter and connecting them with the sounds the letters made. Naturally I had to carry on. Next was Jonty’s name, then came the rest of the alphabet. At this point I decided to carry on and make doubles of most letters because if you have a name like mine it would be nicer to have the double letters be different.

 The subject matter was an easy choice also inspired by my boys who love the outdoors. I found for the first round of letters a few proved tricky but mostly I had to pick the best options for each or would fit as many species in as possible since I couldn’t choose. However once I came to round two it became harder. Along with Jonty I’ve discovered the names, habits, and interesting facts about plants and animals I never knew were endemic to New Zealand. Who knew we had a vibrant red lily called Xeronema clinging to the rocks of the Poor Knights islands. Or that those slater looking bugs in your garden are called isopods. Or that there’s a whole group of plants called liverworts.