What's on Amie's Reader

Art Stuff

Tracey's branching out into the abstract and getting ready for her solo show at Place des Arts in Coquitlam over at A State of Art Portraits.

Heather gets a boost with a suggestion to work in series at Art and Life.

etsasketch is back to school shopping and looking for the perfect pencil case, while Marcy at There is Only Make is getting over her 8th-grade induced sewing-machine inhibitions and creating her first pencil case! Maybe you two should get together...

Spider Ink Studio's Elana has added another post to her Etching Techniques series. I have found it fascinating so far, and this post is no disappointment - yet another use for litho crayons that doesn't involve lithography!

Meanwhile, Katka has taken the leap and set up her Etsy shop - check out Blue Chisel Prints on Etsy.

Jeanette has an incredible series of mixed media works based on gyotaku (fish printing) a rainbow trout on her Illustrated Life. Scroll through to find her other entries starting with a capelin print last week (also featured on Watermarks).

Pica's added some beautiful sketches of a not especially beautiful bird, but how lovely her interpretations on The Magpie Nest. While having the face only a mother could love, I'm especially partial to these graceful scavengers, and have a version from my Bestiary.

Science Stuff

Dr A on The Phytophactor gives us an excellent reason to concern ourselves with global warming: chocolate (not just melting, but changing ecology altering habitat for the plant from which it comes).

Further on global warming on the EEB and Flow, another one of my favourite critters is even more at risk possibly than frogs: check out why salamanders might be global warming canaries in a coal mine.

And how clever is this! Enrichment for octopus! OK, just too darned cute (yes, another favourite critter - my Bestiary is well represented this week!!). Thanks to The Other 95% and Zoologix for the link, but definitely go to the whole series of photos at the New England Aquarium's site.

Another cephalopod feature from The Other 95% - what great footage of a hunting cuttlefish. The colours! And the stealthy behaviour.

The Echinoblog could have pulled this picture directly from the Whale Lab's touch pool at Bamfield to illustrate the fact that this species of urchin (largest on the west coast of North America) can live to a ripe old age of a century or more.

Finally, are you one of the 50% of the population that has the chemical receptor to detect the scent of asparagus pee? And take the time to read all about lichens and mosses on Watching the World Wake Up (go on, he went to a lot of effort and has some very nifty graphics, as per usual. Not only that, you might learn something; I certainly did!!).

More Sketches

These tulips are actually from our trip to Mom's earlier last month; I've just been away from my computer/scanner for so long that I'd not yet had a chance to scan them in and post to the blog. I go for a month with nothing, and now you're inundated with stuff!!!

I'm really happy with the tulip colour in the first one, but I got carried away trying to get the right colour in the second one, and lost the highlights and obfuscated the line work more than I would have preferred.

Tulips - Watercolour & pen, approximately 7"x10"

Rococo Parrot Tulip - Watercolour & pen, approximately 7"x10"

This one is from my Dad's - it's definitely not at all what I had in mind; this is why I hate watercolour. I don't have the patience to spend the time learning how to use the medium, hence I won't ever really get any good at it. I really had liked the way the dark greens of the spruces made the bright aspen trunks & their brand-new spring green leaves leap out. I was planning on doing a lot of negative painting on that left-hand side, but got a wicked headache from the reflection of the sun off the white paper; how do artist's deal with that? Probably don't arse around as long as I do with their work! Needless to say, this is not one of my stellar moments in art...

Tree sketch - watercolour, approximately 7"x10"

These next ones are from two separate birds that schmucked themselves against Dad's window; both on the same day! Poor things. So I took advantage of their stillness. The watercolours in the second one aren't quite as disappointing as the above tree sketch, but still not quite right. At least the colours are relatively accurate.

Brown-headed Cowbird, male - graphite, approximately 8"x11"

Western Tanager, female - graphite & watercolours
approximately8"x4" and 3"x3", respectively