Respectfully Dead, Happily Living

A few weeks ago I went to Artist's Night at the Body Worlds III exhibit, live models posing next to the plastinated bodies. It's taken me a while, but I'm finally putting up the sketches I did. Now, bear with me here, most of these are pretty rough, and I can't say I'm happy with some of them, but I was glad to have the opportunity to work out my rusty figure drawing skills. Many of the people that went sketching that night had skills that I envied. So, onto the sketches. I find that I really only like the first one, and that my skills were kind of sporadic after that. Forgive the quality of the reproductions. I took the photos hastily in the evening. WARNING: Artistic Nudes ahead.

Spreading the Ink

Tried out some pen techniques at work with a few duck and other recent illustrations. I realized I don't really have a good brush for inking; at least it worked for the large patches I had to cover. So, the duck foot was done in the precise, careful inking I normally do, same with the buffalo sculpin. The generic duck was done partially with a brush, and the duck head was done with some looser, more varied strokes. The desert tortoise was a slower process with more detail, but I fiddle with stroke variation on the shell.

Holding onto the Edge

A couple of Gulf of California's critically endangered residents, the vaquita whale and the totoaba fish--both are about the same size at about 6 ft. Overfishing of the totoaba using gillnets have decreased both populations to the point of near extinction. The decreased flow of water from the Colorado River hasn't helped either. Current conservation efforts include the creation of a nature preserve between the Colorado River delta and the upper portion of the Gulf of California.
Originals are 11X14 done in pen and ink for work.

Slither and Slink

Some eels for your viewing pleasure. Eels can be more beautiful, with more complex patterns than you'd think, especially since most people jump to the California moray eel or perhaps the eels in The Little Mermaid when thinking about what eels might look like. They are certainly more diverse in form and pattern than I'd ever thought before seeing so many different species. All in black and white with pen and ink of the species that can be found at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

A Few Sharks

So these are some of the watercolor spot paintings I've been doing at work lately for ID signage. For some reason the "save for web" option in Photoshop always makes the images darker. I understand the more limited color palette, but I'm not quite sure why the colors would be darker overall.
As they are:
sandtiger shark Carcharias taurus
blacktip reef shark Carcharius melanopterus
nurse shark Ginglymostoma cirratum