We've gone to the zoo

Don't look for me today,
When there's nothing to do.
Don't ask me to play,
I've gone to zoo.

Not Pictured: Cleanliness

I've gone with Dear Lacey,
and Vera in tow,
And we rode on the bus
through Scarborough

We got to the gates
where some bitch made a huff,
but Lacey got in free
and she told us "tough"

The sun was shining bright,
the kids we're in their wagons
So we started in Australia
And Vera humped the Komodo Dragon

The author does not condone the act of humping the Komodo dragon

We saw through Eurasia
as best as we could
but most of the exhibits
were closed, but not for good!
Just waiting til pandas
come and take over that section
(Big stupid bears
that can't get erections)

I got to touch stingrays
Which was quite unexpected
I've always loved those creatures
even though they can be irritated

From there we went walking,
and Vera's dancing was funky
As we spied not just one,
but two types of ginger monkeys!

Then we traveled through Africa
and we saw all the creatures
and we talked and we giggled
about the baboons butt features.

We played and we frollicked,
saw creatures big and small,
from butterflies, to penguins
we saw them all

We hiked through a tundra
and read up on some mosquito lady
And introduced Lacey
to a beaver tail (yummy!)


Is this poem lame?
Yes I think it's so.
But it does make me realize
what I already know

 I love my friends
And there's nothing I'd rather do
Then to take all of them
on a trip to the zoo

Matti Paints - Subject Vera

This is Vera!

Me and Vera, though I have only known her a short time, have had a bit of an unspoken bond between us. I think it comes from the fact that she’s fluent in sign language and I can generally follow along. But after painting her, I have a new appreciation for a lot of things about her. She’s a lovely girl and from muppets to growing up with Christian music we discovered we had much more in common than either of us had anticipated.

She was playful. Something that I believe was captured very well in her colour choices. She issued me a challenge in her choices by choosing orange and green. Unlike many others her colour choices were tertiary, meaning that instead of using the primaries she focused on purple, green and orange. It’s challenging to keep these colours from bleeding together into a dirty brown, but I like to think I managed to manipulate them into something more fitting of how I see her.
We both have a shared love of literature which I got to explore with her in the painting process. I admit her choices were a bit more strange than mine, but there was a bizarre kind of cohesion to them. Much like her, I found a lot of disjointed bits and colours that shouldn’t go together, that somehow combine into something fun and admirable.
I greatly enjoyed working with Vera. She was easy to work with, and our conversations were light and fun. I can’t WAIT to go to the zoo with her next week!

The one thing that really shocked me a little bit was for the first time I realized that this project is having a much more personal effect on me than I originally thought it would. It’s such an intimate experience and the things you discover about the person really do influence how you see them. I feel I now know Vera in a much more personal and intimate way and that she sees me in a new light as well.
On a very technical level, red heads with fair skin have proven to be quite easy to paint!