An illustration fundraiser for Zealandia

If you know me or follow me on social media you’ll know how much I love Zealandia Ecosanctuary. Zealandia is my happy place, it’s my go-to when we have a nice day in Wellington and I want to be amongst nature. I absolutely love hanging out with the birds and looking for wildlife in the lush forest. I also appreciate how much work Zealandia do and how they’ve transformed Wellington to a thriving city full of wildlife.

Prior to the pandemic, cruise ship passenger and tourists used to flood to Zealandia, spending up large in the gift shop and cafe. Of course that’s not the case anymore and visitation numbers have been very low. Recently Zealandia launched a fundraising appeal to help keep them afloat until things go back to normal and international visitors can start returning again.

Naturally my first thought was to give a donation, but an idea came to mind that would be much better. The idea sprung to me while I was face to face with a gorgeous little toutouwai, I thought I could make an illustration of that little bird and sell it, and donate the profits back to Zealandia. Naturally my inspiration spiralled and I thought the way I could have the most impact and make a more meaningful donation would be to sell a bunch of illustrations and donate all the profits to Zealandia.

The illustrations took me 2 weeks to create, with Zealandia visits in-between. Once they were finished I made the illustrations available on my website and they sold super quickly! I’m so happy to say that I raised over $2,205! I’m over the moon with the outcome and I hope that Zealandia are too. I’m so grateful to everyone that purchased an original and helped me raise this amount.

I loved creating these illustrations and actually have a pretty big project coming up with a similar process. I’ll keep the project a bit of a secret for now, but I’m very excited about it!