Ex Libris

Commission done for someone who's husband is an English Doctoral graduate. It was designed so that it could potentially be made into a tattoo. The shield serves as the identification marker since it would be weird to get one's name tattooed to oneself. Done on Bristol board with Micron pens.

Hyenas

Here's a big ink drawing I did over my Christmas Holidays.

India Ink on Rives BFK
Paper size:36''x22.5''
Image size:26.5''x19''

Animals studies

I did this today at my local zoo. The story behind the words is that one of the llamas does not get along with the tapir.

Some studies I did with a brush tip marker.

Improper Bit Use

This is a drawing I started at my favorite bar. I came back to it a few days later to finish sketching it. Then, I decided to ink and paint it. I tried out a new painting technique by using a lot of gloss medium to layer colors on top of each other. I like the effect and it keeps my lines from becoming hidden. I really like how this one came out. Somehow I managed to carry over a lot of the energy that was in the pencil sketch into the final image. I have a tendency to nitpick and overwork my drawings to the point of lifelessness. The only downside to this is that it's only 5.5'' x 7''. I'd really like to start working bigger just to have something to openly show. Regrettably, this will forever be tucked away in my tiny sketchbook.

Minotaur Munny

This was my first attempt at painting a Munny. I think this little project was the most fun I've had painting in a really long time.

The Fall

Today, I caught the eland at the zoo close to the fence chewing cud. This gave me a great opportunity to draw him since he is usually hiding in the back of the enclosure.

This particular guy has had a rough time. Several years ago the keepers found him one morning with a shattered jaw. Theory is that one of the zebras kicked him. Anyway, the poor guy ended up having half of his bottom jaw removed. During transit back to the zoo he managed to rip his ear and sit on his tail. Now he's missing a huge chunk of his left ear and his tail has atrophied off to a nub. Due to his lack of jaw bone, his tongue constantly dangles out of his mouth. A keeper told me they were afraid he wasn't going to make it after his surgery since he had such a hard time eating. He has since learned to deal with his missing jaw and is quite frankly the biggest eland I have ever seen in a zoo.