Jack 🌿

HUMAN ARTIST & AUTHOR he/they current projects: The Nightmare Scenario (scifi trilogy), Welcome To Camp (experimental horror anthology), ecology undergrad 🌿 Only handmade artisanal brainrot

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Plague soldier beetles (Chauliognathus lugubris sp.) swarming this time last year, in and around a row of gorgeous Kanooka trees (Tristaniopsis laurina sp.). They’re only about 2cm long, and their elytra glitter grey-green in the sun.

When Tristaniopsis blooms, they rock up in plague proportions almost overnight, partying in these strange patterns over the trees and ground. A very funky name for a very funky beetle.

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The Jade Goyl from the first book of my all-time favourite series — ‘The Petrified Flesh’ by Cornelia Funke

Close-ups and spoilers under the break:

I have some deep green jade from a friend’s trip to Aotearoa New Zealand and a few other random chunks from museums around Australia so mixed them together to come up with a possible texture.

I was thinking about the characteristics of jade and the places where it’s an important stone culturally as I’ve been rereading the whole Mirrorworld series, and I’m thinking the final book could be set in Aotearoa at least partially. It was mentioned at the start of ‘The Silver Tracks’ just like Nihon was mentioned in ‘Living Shadows’ and ‘The Golden Yarn’. The dreamlike beautiful quality with which Cornelia described Nihon and Toshirō and Hideo is so captivating; I’m very excited for the final book to be announced.

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Dicksonia sp. or Cyathea sp. tree fern (I can never remember the points of difference) and Doryanthes excelsa sp. Gymea lily. Two of my favourite non-tree trees 💚

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Chaunacops sp. fish and pingpong tree sponge for day two of @mbari-blog @montereybayaquarium Deep Sea December — “Red”

(feat. EVNautilus’ scale lasers)

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Predatory tunicates and chrysogorgid octocorals enjoying marine snow near a fossilised whale jaw bone for day one of @mbari-blog @montereybayaquarium Deep Sea December — “Snow”

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EXOPALAEO SERIES #15 - “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

Earlier this year, I started a watercolour art series based on an ecology lab researching exobiology in the field, inspired in part by @cryptonature

This one was drawn first in my sketchbook, twice the size of the watercolour tiles. Then I decided to use this one as an experiment to see how this composition could work in different media and scales.

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My zoology exam is next week so naturally I’m treating myself to one episode of His Dark Materials for each day of hardcore revision.

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Morgan made Gwen a Cataclysm-era playlist (read: mixtape ripped from goth vinyls found in the studio in the woods), and Gwen found Morgan a beginner’s knitting kit at an abandoned haberdasher’s.

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Very excited to listen to the @camlannpod soundtrack on cassette! It arrived on a ludicrously-chilly Australian afternoon when the moss was growing bright green after rain in my driveway, just a few days before my birthday and a month before the 1 year anniversary of my first listen too, how lovely and on-theme!

I will be hopefully getting an actual cassette deck soon but in the meantime everyone should listen to Camlann and tell the folks at @tincanaudio how much you love it (as loud as you can so we can all revel in new seasons!)

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Myrtaceae for an undergrad botany project, brought to you by my mum’s bat-borne guava tree (Psidium guajava sp.)

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Georgie Barker(s), you terrify me

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Dare I say Perry and Gwen are two sides of the same coin?

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Excited to listen to the Camlann soundtrack (from @tincanaudio) 24/7 very soon! But not as exciting as the prospect of a second season……… Going to head back to the rainforest and do a relisten as the Cataclysm intended 🌿

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[1: Clayton, VIC, Australia | 2: Baw Baw, VIC, Australia]

Scrolling iNaturalist to try to ID my moss samples, I discovered the light green sprawling one is actually a leafy liverwort.

Nonvascular plants remind me of miniaturised rainforests in the same way circuitboards remind me of cities bustling with resistor-cars around capacitor factories and microchip houses.

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[Yarragon, VIC, Australia]

Lots of love for lichen 🌿

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Soon it’ll be twelve years since I started designing and writing nonsense about this character, Yolanda, from my longform creative project, ‘The Nightmare Scenario’.

So instead of doing anything about that, I’m just going to keep doing colourscale portraiture until new inspiration hits like a resurrection fern coming back from drought!

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It’s been raining on and off for a month straight where I live, so I am blessed with plenty of reference shrooms wherever there’s leaflitter and tanbark

(And I’m never really far away from a Raven Cycle/Dreamers reread)