Armenian Viper Exhibit and Spider Monkey Exhibit

The St. Louis Zoo Herpetarium is highly involved in conservation and protecting endangered herps (snakes, turtles, lizards, amphibians, etc.)  One of the species Jeff Ettling and other members of the herpetarium have worked hard to protect is the Armenian Viper, so I was very excited to paint the mural for this awesome snake.  

I did my best to include as many of the native plants and landscape features of the viper's habitat in Armenia.  The poppies and other flowers were a fun excuse to include colors I don't usually get to work with.  Rocks are fun too.

Although the mural is done, the exhibit is still being worked on, so if you want to see the vipers in their new home you may need to come back in a week or two.

I am currently working next door on the Spider Monkey exhibit in the Primate house.  The spider monkeys are in the the last exhibit I painted: the Tamarin exhibit (no idea where the tamarins and sakis are).  

I am painting another amazon rainforest scene.  This time I am depicting the deep forest on a wet and misty day, so there are a lot of cool colors.  The exhibit rocks are very hard to move around on without tripping and almost landing on my head, so progress has been rather slow but it's coming along.

Thank you to everyone who has been sending or posting encouragement and praise!  It is always nice to hear what people think about what I'm doing.