Source: University of Otago
Dr Stephanie Godfrey and her husband Paddy’s hobby has grown into a side-line complete with its own website.
Off-Campus profiles the diverse and inspiring out-of-office pursuits of Otago staff. This week, Senior Lecturer and animal artist Dr Stephanie Godfrey
Combining a love of animals and art has turned into a fun side gig for Dr Stephanie Godfrey.
The Zoology senior lecturer makes animal prints in her spare time, drawing on her skill as an artist and a fondness for the creatures of her adopted home.
Originally from Australia, Stephanie and her husband Paddy moved to Aotearoa New Zealand five years ago, with the wildlife part of the draw.
Paddy takes photos of creatures the couple encounter on their walks. Using the photo as a guide, Stephanie sketches the image.
“A year before we got married, we visited New Zealand and fell in love with the kākā on Stewart Island. To be fair, New Zealand doesn’t have as much wildlife as Australia but it is unique and really special. We both decided that this country was the kind of place that we could live in.”
Their wedding was the inspiration for Stephanie to dust off her art skills which had been put to one side as she completed her PhD.
“We wanted to make her own wedding invitations so I drew a little love heart of all our favourite animals with the date and our name in the middle. And the most efficient way I could think of to make the invitations was to literally have a stamp to print them out.
“We printed them out and then we were like, ‘Oh, we could make tea towels’. So we ended up making gift tea towels to give out to our wedding. And that’s where it started.”
The carving is an intricate process. Stephanie uses rubber, which is easier to cut than wood.
The next step was making gifts for friends’ babies before the couple took the plunge and started selling animal print items at the University craft market.
“It was really fun and really successful. We were stoked that we made some sales. We really can’t help ourselves and just kept making stuff.”
The hobby has grown into a side-line complete with its own website selling everything from mugs and bags to t-shirts and baby grows – all decorated with beautiful renderings of Aotearoa wildlife.
“We both work full time. This is very much on the weekends kind of stuff.”
Paddy takes photos of creatures the couple encounter on their walks. Using the photo as a guide, Stephanie sketches the image, and then hand-carves that picture on to a block, which Paddy prints onto the products.
The carving is an intricate process. Stephanie uses rubber, which is easier to cut than wood, but still unforgiving of errors.
“I have to build myself up to start and then I always start with the eye because it’s the most crucial part of it all and I can’t cover up any stuff up. If I mess that up I know I have to start from scratch again.”
Selecting what to draw is a mixture of anticipated demand and personal taste – with one humble creature an unexpected breakout star.
“One of the first animals we chose is a kākāpō because everyone loves kākāpō. But now we’ve got the main animals out the way – the albatross, kākāpō, kiwi and things – it’s mainly by driven by what we’re excited about.
“A few months ago, my husband found this really cool wētā in our backyard, an Otago ground weta. It’s unique to this area, which is really cool. I’ll usually have some plans but if we find something really cool, or we’re excited about something, that will end up jumping the queue.
The humble stick insect has been an unexpected hit.
“The one that has surprised us the most is stick insects – people love stick insects. I made a print of one and we were like, ‘Oh, well, we’ll put it on a few T shirts and hope to sell a few’. And people love them. It’s one of our most popular designs.”
