For want of a more interesting term, I'm going to call this the Little/Big Challenge. Do quick little sketches of the Charismatic Megafauna and long, detailed studies of the small, unpopular animals. If I may say so myself, I think the results are a-pretty good:
I've been working on so many text-heavy posts lately that I felt it was high time for a post that focused on my drawings. Fortunately, I recently had the opportunity to visit the wonderful Maine Wildlife Park... briefly. The drawings you're about to see may seem a little rushed. I was there with someone who'd never been before and they were laser-focused on seeing the male moose. All told we stayed for maybe an hour after that so... yeah.
Still, in that hour, I managed to get in some quality life drawing time:
And the inevitable
Sad and/or Hilarious Things Overheard At The Zoo:
"I wish they had elephants here." - A person who either didn't read the sign or didn't quite "get" it
"Is that ALL your vocabulary?!?" - Some lady, directed at a bird. (WTF?)
"BWAAAARK! BWAAAARK!!! Cuck-cuck-cuck-coooooooo!!!" - Old man -um- communicating with the animals. There was also a crazy kid, totally unrelated, hissing at the Lynxes who were trying to sleep. There are times when you wouldn't like it if certain zoo visitors were maimed by angry animals and then there are times like that...
And the usual, "I don't understand what I'm seeing here so I will make wild assumptions instead of reading the f&^%ing signs!"
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Since this is a little short, here come the inevitable Links of Interest!
I was in no way aware of this never-made "Dazzler" movie and now I am kind of sad that it does not exist. Because who wouldn't want to watch a film where K.I.S.S. and the Village People are rival superhero teams?
The theme for the next Science 3.0 Blogging Contest is dinosaurs! Submit one (or three) of your dinosaur-involving blog posts or (even though I hate to be That Person) vote for me!
And, if you love dinosaurs and message boards, please join Hell Creek!
The Maine Wildlife Park in Gray, Maine is another of my absolute favorite places to sketch. There's no real substitute for sketching from life. Especially when you run into a good model like this porcupine:
And this moose:
The Park is run by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and started out as a facility for raising game birds like pheasants and turkeys. Formerly known as the Gray Game Farm, it expanded it's purpose to rehabilitating injured animals of all species.
Today, the Wildlife Park serves as a shelter and rehabilitation center for wild animals who, for some reason or other, cannot survive outside the zoo. Representative species of most New England mammals are one of the Park's highlights. (Though you will probably run into some Hazards of Sketching In Public, like I did. See the quote I overheard in the page below. And the dreaded All Animals are Domesticated trope affects this park like no other...)