I not only have sketches from a Goat Yoga experience we had at a local dairy farm, I also have a Sketchbook Review! First, a roundup of recent Sketchbooks:
So what did I think of Goat Yoga? If it's your thing, cool, but I don't see myself doing it again. I had more fun sketching and petting than exercising.
Next week - a very unusual Sketchbook with very unusual needs...
While I'm aching for a rerun of "Raptor Force" some day, this was an outstanding episode. Secretary Birds! Seriemas!
Me and many other very cool artists are participating in the Extinct Fine Art Gallery. My paintings are going to carry over into the next "cycle" of exhibits on Friday, so you have a couple more days to see the first round and-
"Trish, this is your first blog post in two years, where the blazes have you been?"
Ah yes. Well, in a word, I've been busy. I've been gradually shifting my online presence over to BlueSky, and that's proven to be more of a project than anticipated. It's been hard, but I hope to get back into the art sharing and blog-posting groove. Thank you for your patience.
Many of us probably know Rien Poortvliet for Gnomes, which is an undisputed fantasy/fantasy illustration/speculative biology(?)/well, spec-bio-adjacent masterpiece. But he had many other beautiful books to his credit and among them, surprisingly, is a work of Paleoart:
Journey to the Ice Age, published in English in 1994 by Harry N. Abrams is every bit as beautifully crafted as Gnomes and once again, Poortvliet's love and careful observation of the natural world shines through. The paintings are based on his thoughts wandering while sitting in his hunting hide.
A highlight of the book is it's focus on prehistoric people. I'm especially fond of the series of paintings speculating that the first human to ride a wild horse was either very brave, very stupid, or some combination thereof and also somebody triple-dog-dared them.
And now, the mammoths. Poortvliet had a few mammoth specimens on hand, like hair and a vertebrae; tactile reminders of the beasts, so they are never far from his mind. This is a very beautiful book and I'm happy to have stumbled upon it.
This was a really good multipart episode because it focused on rarer, lesser-known canines.
Earlier this year, my family and I went to Walt Disney World. Here are some thoughts.
The Flower and Garden Festival was lovely as usual. We got to ride on everything we'd wanted to experience. The weather was perfect; we even got to float in the pool more often that I'd expected. And the new-to-me Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind was a blast!
A few not-so-great things: EPCOT is really suffering with all the construction in Future World (and the day I call Future World "World Celebration/Nature/Stuff" is the day I call Twitter "X"). Space 220 had very good food and I enjoyed some of the little touches, but for the price and popularity, I was expecting more than feasting in the warming glow of a screensaver. The idea is similar to Coral Reef but I think I'd rather eat in the company of real actual fish. On the subject of food and drink, I did not care for the Villain's Lair retheme of the Bay Lake Tower DVC Lounge. Not everything needs to have Disney characters or a Theme and we all agreed that the drinks are ghastly!
Anyway. Animal Kingdom sketches!
I promised you charismatic megafauna didn't I? You can't get more charismatic than elephants; I honestly don't know what we humans did to deserve living alongside them.
And this episode helped me get right into my next Sketchbook! I just happened to pop into a Five Below for the first time ever and it turns out they have a good selection of art supplies. I got a really nice, really thick watercolor Sketchbook that's seen me through most of this year; an HQ Fine Stroke. I got two because they were, in fact, below five dollars each. And that was a good move because they're every bit as good as the old reliable Strathmore Visual Journals. Anyway, back to elephants!
