Visit the Brevard Zoo

by Kathy Garvey

We have a beautiful zoo in Brevard County that is near and dear to my heart. Some of you may remember the old Houser's Zoo that came under fire in the early 80's as being one of the worst zoos in the country. This was a blow to dear old Mr. Houser who was at the time dealing with cancer and facing selling his orange groves where he housed the zoo. He had been saving animals ready to be euthanized when a circus or zoo didn't want them anymore because of their appearance.

Remember the chimp with one arm - yes, lost it by touching an electrical cord at his prior home. Mr. Houser gave him a home when no one else would. Remember Buckles the elephant chained all day and pacing back and forth in a little circular fence? She lost half an ear due to an injection gone wrong at her prior home. Mr. Houser took her in. The rocking and pacing was only because when zoo visitors were gone she was released to run in the orange groves and play, and just couldn't wait to get out there. I got involved and learned all this when my daughter's school took a trip there and she came home telling me she held a gibbon's hand for over an hour. That was Choo-Choo. If you heard her hoot you would understand the name. Apparently my daughter reminded Choo-Choo of Mr. Houser's own daughter who had helped raise her. There were lots of stories like that and a small band of about 20 people formed the Brevard Zoological Society to secure animals and get land for a bigger better zoo. That was actually the start of our new and wonderful local zoo. (I have all the history files.) The new zoo distances itself from that bad publicity (and thus all of us), but that's how it got started. And I love how far they have come.

It's one of my favorite photo resources for digital work. I encourage you to take a walk there with your camera. Or, buy a membership so you can go often and support it. Below are some of my digital images all taken at Brevard Zoo and also created to promote it.

Rhino: From the Zoo to the Sofa/Wall

By Kathy Garvey 

I'm getting better at combining the things I love! I just finished a project that took an image from one of my favorite activities - a walk through our own local Brevard Zoo - to a print in Photoshop (no secret how much I love Photoshop) to a design printed to fabric at Spoonflower (ditto!) to a potential spot on my sofa (best place in the house for a nap)! Click on any image to enlarge it.

Brevard Zoo has an awesome raised platform for photographing their Rhinos!

This was my first pass at the image in Photoshop - mostly adding texture and colorizing.

When I realized how beautiful the front Rhino was, I extracted him to a background composed of textures
from my sidewalk and then added the word Rhinoceros in other languages found by googling them!

I decided he was handsome enough to print to fabric so I created a file to upload to Spoonflower
that would give me a single large banner and three small pillows when printed to their Linen Cotton Canvas.

Spoonflower did an awesome job! I love their Linen Cotton Canvas.
Here's the completed banner ready to hang and three pillows.

Nap time!

I have made the print available for sale at Spoonflower so if you like it, you can order a yard of this print on Linen Cotton Canvas and create your own pillows and wall hanging. Click here to view the order page.

Note: Shortly after I printed this fabric at Spoonflower, they announced a contest featuring fabric with Rhinos. Since I had just completed this one, I couldn't resist entering and created a second larger print sized for the contest. If you'd like to see some of the other awesome rhino prints the many other designers created, click here. You can vote for as many as you like!

That print is set up for Spoonflower's Kona Cotton and will yield one 21x18 pillow top per fat quarter or four 21x18 pillow tops to a yard.  Click here to view the order page.

Time to Visit the Zoo

By Kathy Garvey

Now that the weather is cooling off, it's time to visit our wonderful local zoo. It's a constant source of inspiration and a fun affordable place to visit, especially if you invest in a membership. I've been able to go early in the morning and walk the zoo when there are hardly any visitors. Sometimes you have to wait for the animals to be let out on exhibit, but it's worth the wait. On my last visit, the giraffes were all out, young and old alike and they are magnificent! Above is a photo from my last visit, modified a little in Photoshop. And below is series from prior visits, all created with both Photoshop and Illustrator.  From gators to flamingos there's something for everyone.