21 December 07

Wild Dude, Wild Dog

Jonathan Papelbon’s dog ate the World Series ball. The Boston Red Sox closer, who became famous during this year’s post-season for dancing jigs to a tune of the Dropkick Murphys, lost the ball given to him by catcher Jason Varitek after the final out of the 2007 World Series when his bulldog Boss jumped up on the counter and started using it as a rawhide chew toy. “He tore that thing to pieces,” Papelbon said. One New England dog trainer is wondering why the ball was on the counter where the dog could reach it. “Bad dog owner. Bad, bad, bad…” she says.

Posted by at 06:25 PM in Baseball | Link | Comment

12 December 07

Little Things

articulated invertebrate: colored pencil For the “Little Things” theme in Illustration Friday. This creature emerges from decomposing piles.

Posted by at 05:20 PM in Critters | Link | Comment [5]

9 December 07

Scale

“You should draw birds at different sizes,” said Jack.

It made me realize that I draw birds the size I see them. And it doesn’t have to be that way. (For an account of our fantastic bird illustration workshop today, see my account on Bird by Bird.)

Posted by at 08:26 PM in Critters | Link | Comment

4 December 07

Bug Art

This artist clearly would have the upper tarsus in a submission to the current edition of qarrtsiluni.

Posted by at 09:03 PM in Design Arts | Link | Comment

27 November 07

Illustration Friday: The Zoo

Giraffe The Illustration Friday topic this week is The Zoo, so here is another sketch from our trip to the zoo at the beginning of the month. I sketched this giraffe with a fountain pen and a marker pen.

Posted by at 09:45 PM in Design Arts | Link | Comment [1]

24 November 07

Release

I opened the blue box on the beach.

Just like that.

The female scoter panicked, turned back, turned forward, then bolted out toward the open water. There were already at least ten of her kind out there, in the middle of Tomales Bay.

It’s hard to think how much care, energy, time, and, yes, money has been spent on this one bird, getting it to fly and sit on the water again after the horrors of the past two-and-a-half-weeks. It defies thought. But I can tell you, from here, today, it was worth it. All of it.

Posted by at 08:09 PM in Critters | Link | Comment [2]

19 November 07

A Triad of Owls

This evening when I was getting ready to come home there was a pair of barn owls flying around my office, clicking away. The great-horned owls have been singing at night too.

The other night I’m almost certain I heard a screech-owl: it could have been an odd horse whinny from across the road, but I don’t think so…

Posted by at 07:36 PM in Critters | Link | Comment

18 November 07

Tertials and Telescopes

Not a bird Pica finally had a day off oil spill duty (she goes right at it again tomorrow, having to shepherd a national media crew around the Cordelia center at 8 in the morning) just in time for us to attend the Central Valley Bird Symposium down in Stockton. This event has the usual mix of field trips and indoors workshops, but we went down for two reasons — to attend Keith Hansen’s workshop on bird sketching, and for Pica to buy a new spotting scope.

Keith starts his bird sketches with two circles (or ellipses), body and head. In pencil, with eraser. I don’t even generally bring pencils when I go sketching, preferring to be bold in ink. I do see the point though. Keith worked up to an excellent overhead pencil view of a red-tailed hawk, done completely from memory. I decided maybe I should have brought the Derwent Graphitints.

Then to the optics question. It is surprisingly hard to properly compare optics when contemplating a purchase, for in general places that have a wide selection of binoculars and telescopes are few and far between. The best store in Northern California for this task (Out of This World) is way up in Mendocino. This is why one waits for events like the birding symposium because the dealer from Mendocino came down to our neck of the woods with assorted goodies. Pica quickly confirmed that the scope she was investigating was the one she really wanted (the 50mm Nikon ED Fieldscope), but tested out eyepieces before going with the 13-30x zoom instead of the 20x wide angle. She also learned to expect lots of comments saying “oh, what a cute scope!”

Once we got home, I practiced with the Graphitints a bit, but not on a bird, see above.

Baseball note — the new Stockton Sheraton where the symposium was held is right by the ballpark for the Stockton Ports, which is the Single-A minor league team for the Oakland A’s. A nice little stadium — it would be fun to go to a game there next year.

Posted by at 08:32 PM in Design Arts | Link | Comment [2]

15 November 07

Bird-Proofing Windows

Dave Sibley has conducted an experiment to see what will keep birds from colliding with windows. It’s a simple highlighter, almost invisible on glass to humans, but apparently very visible to birds.

Lots of Swainson’s thrushes hit our windows this spring. I’m definitely going to try it.

Spill news: some grebes (Westerns and Clark’s) will be released at Half Moon Bay tomorrow, out of the way of oil. These birds don’t do well at all in captivity and are best released as soon as possible, but I’m amazed it’s THIS soon.

For the sound of a loon at Cordelia, see this (scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on the audio file).

Posted by at 04:10 PM in Critters | Link | Comment [1]

5 November 07

Brush Pen in the Zoo

Red panda Every time we go on a sketching outing we are always faced with the crisis of what art materials to pack. Not having to carry the materials on a week-long backpacking trip means the luxury of porting drawing implements one never ends up using. Of course I try to guess what will be most useful, but the guess is usually somewhat off.

Tiger My experiment yesterday at the zoo with the waterbrush loaded with ink was interesting — I like the technique, but the particular waterbrush I had was leaking too much ink onto my hands. I ended up using mainly a sepia Faber-Castell brush artist pen together with watercolor wash. The red pandas were simply crying out for lots of rich burnt sienna. At left is one of them being fed bamboo leaves. I also drew lots of the big cats — at right is a tiger I sketched just before we headed out.

Posted by at 05:13 PM in Design Arts | Link | Comment [2]

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