Showing posts with label Maine Wildlife Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maine Wildlife Park. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

A Self-Imposed Challenge at Maine Wildlife Park

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:

8.5.14 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

8.5.14 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

8.5.14 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

8.5.14 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

Took another trip to my favorite-ever place to sketch live animals.  This time, I seem to have focused on owls...


8.21.14 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

8.21.14 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

8.21.14 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

More Sketching at the Maine Wildlife Park!

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:

6.28.11 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

6.28.11 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

6.28.11 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

6.28.11 - Maine Wildlife Park Sketches

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!

Sticking with the subject of this post, Andreas Deja shared some truly beautiful and sensitive animal drawings by Marc Davis.

The biennial Focus on Nature exhibition has posted a call for entries. The deadline is October 1 and you may enter two paintings (or... four. The rules are a bit convoluted as you will see.)

I am not the only one who is bummed out at the end of the Space Shuttle program... But there is, if you will, a New Hope according to Geek Dad.

Speaking of bummers, the film that disrupted my visit to the Franklin Park Zoo a while back is arriving in theaters soon and... it's pretty much exactly what I guessed it would be.

But in happier movie news, there's a new "Hobbit" production diary.

Twenty paintings from the Crazy For Cult Show have been revealed online. Holy crap, the "Predator"/"Goonies"/"Big Trouble in Little China"/"Neverending Story" crossover!

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!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Sketching at the Maine Wildlife Park

This one's a nice picture-heavy, text-light one.

8.15.10 Sketchbook Page 2

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:

8.15.10 Sketchbook Page 3

And this moose:

8.15.10 Sketchbook Page 4

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.

8.15.10 Sketchbook Page 5

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...)

8.15.10 Sketchbook Page 6