Join the 2024 World Lemur Festival Art Challenge from September 29 to October 26
Help us inspire the world to love lemurs and take action to save them from extinction through your artwork. Our art challenge is open to all types of art forms: photography, poetry, dance, drawing, painting, collage, whatever you can come up with! We challenge artists of all ages to join the challenge by learning about different aspects of lemur biology, anatomy, behavior, and habitats through artwork.
How To Win Prizes
Use our hashtags to win an item from our store.* Each week, we will randomly select one lucky participant to win an item from the Lemur Conservation Network shops on TeeSpring or RedBubble.
- Post your artwork on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
- Add the hashtags #WorldLemurFestival and #LemurArtChallenge along with something fun you learned about lemurs.
- We’ll select a winner every Saturday during the challenge.
- If you are selected as a winner, we’ll reach out to you on social media and arrange to send you the item from our shop!
Weekly Themes for the Lemur Art Challenge
Find the themes below, along with questions to inspire your artwork.
Week 1: Portraits
September 29 to October 5
Focus on facial features of a favorite lemur species with a closeup portrait. How do the facial features of different species compare and contrast? Which lemur do you think has the cutest face? Which lemur has the most unusual face?
Week 2: Action Shots
October 6 to 12
Focus on the behavior of lemurs with artwork that shows lemurs eating, leaping, playing, singing, grooming, or stink fighting! Does a lemur species have a particular behavior that you find fascinating or beautiful? How do the behaviors of lemurs (like leaping, smelling, or singing) impact what they look like?
Week 3: Family Time
October 13 to 19
Focus on groups of lemurs, especially parent-child relationships or family bonding. How do lemur mothers carry their babies? Does a lemur species sleep in a large group or on their own? How do lemurs groom each other?
Week 4: In the Wild
October 20 to 26
Focus on lemurs in the wild in Madagascar. What does their environment look like? What types of flowers, trees, landscapes, and other animals live in their habitats? Do different lemur species live in different habitats or rely on different types of trees?
Meet Our Featured Artist, Jessie Jordan
We are honored to have Jessie Jordan guiding us through our Lemur Art Challenge on social media this year! Jessie has been living in Madagascar since 2019. She spent a few years in the village of Ranomafana just outside Ranomafana National Park. Now, Jessie is a Manager at the Masoala Forest Lodge in northeastern Madagascar.
Jessie has created artwork for Madagascar National Parks, Cheetah Conservation Fund, Dallas Zoo, and more. She designed the 2024 World Lemur Day logo featuring red ruffed lemurs and black-and-white ruffed lemurs for the Lemur Conservation Network. Find Jessie on Instagram as creative.conservationist and on YouTube as jessie.jordan.
Jessie’s Experiences with Ruffed Lemurs in Madagascar
In Jessie’s own words:
There are over 100 lemur species in Madagascar and they are all interesting in their own way, so I have a difficult time finding an answer when someone asks me what my favorite lemur species is! Ruffed lemurs are surely up there as one of my favorites.
Black-and-White Ruffed Lemurs in Ranomafana National Park
I remember the first time I saw a ruffed lemur in the wild. I was painting with watercolors on a little bridge over a stream with cascades and tall trees in the rainforest of Ranomafana. Suddenly, there was commotion and a bright-eyed black and white fluff ball came into view. To my surprise, there was a black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata), clinging to some branches and heckled by a conspiracy of brown lemurs. At first glance I thought I was hallucinating!
For weeks leading up to this day I had been hearing their calls, but hadn’t seen one yet. Since then, I have been fortunate to see black-and-white ruffed lemurs numerous times despite their status as critically endangered species. I will never forget the time I spent a week in Mangevo following and learning all about them firsthand with lemur researchers.
Red Ruffed Lemurs in Masoala National Park
Then there’s the gorgeous red ruffed lemurs (Varecia rubra), which live only on the Masoala peninsula of northeastern Madagascar. It was a dream of mine to see this species in the wild for years. It felt like fate when I landed a job managing Masoala Forest Lodge in 2022. Sometimes I can hear their calls in the distance from my cabin in the coastal forest. I love hiking up the mountain to see them in my free time.
Ruffed lemurs are so beautiful in their natural habitat! Both species are very dear to my heart. They have inspired dozens of my paintings and art pieces both big and small.
I hope that my art helps inspire others to appreciate and protect lemurs and their natural habitat in Madagascar.
*Prize winners of our Lemur Art Challenge are limited to geographic locations where our store partners ship. To see if TeeSpring ships to you, go to our store, add something to your cart, then proceed to checkout. You can see a list of countries under the country field of the shipping address. Unfortunately, TeeSpring does not ship to Madagascar. We can custom print and deliver limited items for winning artists living in Antananarivo only.