In January, I attended the annual Parrot Festival in Houston, Texas. If you’ve read any of my previous blogs you’ll know I’m a self identified “Bird Nerd.” It was a good time, though I was still in a bit of a slump from losing my 16 year old parrot suddenly a few weeks before. It was good to fellowship with other bird people and learn from some of the best in our world of aviculture. There’s also a ton of stuff to buy. Stuff for birds and stuff for bird people. With my previously planned out shopping list obsolete, I decided to donate to a cause and pick up a few fun things for myself.

The National Parrot Rescue and Preservation Foundation (NPRPF – they’re the group that puts on Parrot Festival each year), they had all manner of bird paraphernalia. Pins, and figurines, tee shirts, key rings….on and on. At the far end of the table I discovered a beautiful set of framed stamps.

Now stamps fascinate me. Have you ever looked at them? Some of them are really quite remarkable, this set is no exception. Such a tiny space, but it makes such a huge impact. This set of course appeals to me because, well, birds. They also appealed to me because they appear to have been used stamps. You can see the faded postage markings on them. Thirdly, they’re gorgeous. You can see remarkable feather details.

They remind me of Eric Peake‘s art. I have a few prints of his at home. With that thought, I headed into the interwebs to find the artist responsible for these tiny works of art.

With a few keyword searches and a few clicks, I found, for sale, on E-bay a mint condition set. Within that set was a little blurb about the set and it named the artist, Kevin Stead.

A little more searching and I found a collector’s website Collectables. There I learned Mr. Stead is an accomplished illustrator from Adelaide, Australia.

“The stamp illustrations are by Kevin Stead, an Adelaide-based wildlife artist, who has worked as an illustrator for more than 30 years. He paints in watercolour, gouache on paper and in acrylic on canvas. As well as being a frequent contributor to Australian Geographic magazine, Kevin has illustrated several stamp issues for Australia Post, including Australian Parrots (2005), Species at Risk (2009) and Australian Poultry (2013).”

https://australiapostcollectables.com.au/stamp-issues/finches-of-australia?fm=search-organic:kevin%20stead:3

I brought the set into work and keep them on display in my cube. I really do enjoy them. I hope you enjoyed this little blog about them. Thank you for reading!

More later.

Categories: Art, Art & Design, Bird-Nerd AlertTags: Art, australia, aviculture, illustration, Parrots, stamps