Tag: arts ink

Wolverine Stew: Anatomy of a Notebook Page

clydemg Leave a comment

The microbiome is important

All manner of mushrooms sprout

Graphite mycelium merging with

Red parallel lines of soil

Spirals bound to spiral-bound paper

Spinning further with each need to

Focus and distract oneself

And on those festive occasions

You’ll find pumpkins, snowflakes, hearts

Technically vestigial, but still enjoyed

And four corners become eight as the page is

Folded and folded and folded and folded

Until the edges are torn

Piling up, scraps of snow on a paper mountain

Oh

Right

There are some words too

LOG_028_BEASTS_OF_BURDEN

Traveler Leave a comment 


CATEGORY [ XENOBIOLOGY ]

ARTICLE ARCHIVED FROM [ ??? ]

ARTICLE NOTES:

[ These large creatures stand around 4.5-5.2 ft at the shoulders and are 8.3 to 10.5 ft long, and are native to the planet Khepri-1d. They have been domesticated for transportation and livestock purposes, providing protection and travel over uneven terrain and a source of leather and rudimentary armor. Their lumbering, heavyset appearance belies the surprising speed they can attain in quick, short bursts in defense of their herds. ]

Wolverine Stew: Memories for Pete

clydemg Leave a comment

Going below the cold

The snow churned by a hundred

Trails cut through the slush

Into the pink neon on

Black ceilings and white tiles

Taking the time to

Work as a trio, cutting the

Lights, always night and day

Count the phobias skittering across the

Screen: spider, cicada, wasp, mosquito

See how far I can stretch a

Line of paper from me to the

Machines pulling me closer

Walk the rows of pinball lights showing

Rings, monsters, castles, in every

Corner awash in their glow

Balance dragons together on plastic skateboards

In the cool of the tables behind the stairs

And just breathe

Wolverine Stew: Hibernation Garden

clydemg Leave a comment

To remind myself of spring

Out of the world feeling like

It is made of a single room

The lights inside and out

Blurred in the growing fog

And the cold reaching out

Hollow roots burrowing into me

There is

A bouquet of wilted amaryllis

Petals I give to myself while

A new bloom emerges from the

Bulb wrapped in wax wrapped in

Pollen coating the windowsill

And with enough homemade rain

Spread across the weeks

Leaves will keep sprouting

Wrapping round the ceramic faces

That cradle their earth

And reaching for glass-guarded sunlight

That always comes back

LOG_027_WINDSURFERS

Traveler Leave a comment 
KHEPRI-1B

CATEGORY [ XENOBIOLOGY ]

ARTICLE ARCHIVED FROM [ KATJA RUŽA KRALJ]

ARTICLE NOTES:

[ Grass windsurfers are a group of small, insectoid creatures which inhabit the windy darkgrass plains in the near-side terminator on Khepri-1b. Their prominent tail spine contains a folded thin membrane that can be expanded to act as a sail, allowing them to glide short distances on the strong and near-perpetual gusts in the region. Inflatable air sacs on either side of their bodies allow them some control over their own buoyancy. They often have bright eye-like markings on the dorsal side of their bodies, which likely serve the same purpose as eyespots seen in Earth life for deceiving predator or prey species. ]

Industrious Illustrating #53 – Life Drawing 5

Robin Leave a comment

Hello, and welcome back to another week of Industrious Illustrating! This week’s update is a little brief, since I’m just recapping the trip I took to the La Brea Tar Pits Museum in Los Angeles over winter break. When I was there I took the opportunity to draw some of the fossil skeletons on display to better understand the construction of animal bodies, as I hadn’t seen some of these skeletons in real life before and I want to make more creature/scientific illustrations in the future.

Something interesting about my trip there was that there was a glass windowed viewing area to look at scientists at work cleaning fossils recovered from the “tar” pits (which are actually filled with liquid asphalt!), and there were a few informational plaques and displays sitting on the windowsill ranging from excavated bugs and microshells to stuffed animals of the animals most commonly found in La Brea. There was also a scientific illustrator on staff (who I assume drew the lovely drawings on some of the plaques) who was actively working on a scientific illustration on their iPad when I was visiting. I especially enjoyed the puppet of the now-deceased mountain lion P-35, as I’d just read about his story in the excellent book “Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet”.

All in all, my visit to the La Brea Tar Pits left me feeling more inspired and motivated than before. While I doubt I’ll pursue scientific illustration as a full-time career, I still want to explore different subject matter I find interesting as much as I can so that my work will be versatile and never grow stale or predictable. And of course, there’s no need to travel far from home to do so — even back in Ann Arbor there’s several resources such as the Natural History Museum, the Leslie Science & Nature Center, and the Creature Conservancy that all have skeletons or live animals on display to see and understand in real life.
That’s all for this week! What would you guys like to see me discuss next week? Let me know!