Hindsight

Alison and I love dogs. But there are lots of reasons why we can’t have one right now. So we were delighted to discover recently that Fresh Pond has not only a lovely walking path, but a little auxiliary pond in which dogs are allowed to swim. And boy do they! So now one of our favorite things to do on a sunny weekend is to go sit by the pond for an hour watching the dogs play, and occasionally making new friends (of either the two- or four-legged variety).

Here are some recent sketches, some from last week, some from yesterday.

Last week:

Yesterday:

I forgot how neat the Harvard Museum of Natural History is. Or to be more precise, I forgot how FULL it is. I remembered the awesome glass plant collection, the mineral room, and some cool fossils. But the collection of animals is MUCH bigger than I remembered. It’s a shame that a few of the large mammals are literally coming apart at the seams, but they have some really awesome dinosaur skeletons. Here’s one example, the Glyptodont.

(ink + Photoshop)

Here are some studies I did in preparation for carving a bird stamp.

This drawing is of a kitsune, a Japanese fox spirit with magical powers. Colored pencil, with a little digital touch-up.

In my quest to improve my horse drawings, I thought it might be a good idea to try a little animation. This is pretty rough, and it’s basically just a copy from Eadweard Muybridge‘s Animals in Motion, but it made me practice drawing the proportion and structure of the horse quickly, and it was also a chance to play with Photoshop’s animation capabilities. Did you know Photoshop has animation capabilities? I just discovered this a few weeks ago, and I really like the possibilities for animating with painterly tools (of the sort you won’t find in Flash).

I’m trying to work on some of my weaknesses, one of which is drawing horses. I can draw them fine from reference, but it’s not always easy to find the correct pose and angle, and the mental model I have of their anatomical structure isn’t very good. Here are a few practice studies, and I’ll probably be doing more in the coming weeks.

Last week I was on the road, in good old PA, for both business and leisure.

First there was the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teacher of English, my favorite show, which was in Philly. This is the first year that Candlewick has sent me officially, which was pretty sweet in that everything was paid for and I got some fancy dinners. However, I kind of missed being on the show floor all weekend as I have in the past. Even though that’s exhausting, it’s just fabulous to meet so many teachers, almost all of whom are excited about my books! I still got a lot of that excitement, but I didn’t have a chance to meet quite as many teachers this year.

During our day off from the show, we went to see Eastern State Penitentiary, which is awesome, and then to the Philly Zoo, which is aging but quite cool. We didn’t have much time at the zoo before they closed, so we mostly just saw primates. And lions. Drawings below.

After the show, we stayed in the area and had Thanksgiving with Alison’s parents. Now I’m back, and trying to finally finalize the Odyssey cover.

LOTS more drawings below the cut:

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I believe I’ve mentioned that Mount Auburn Cemetery is awesome, and that I love to draw there. And that there’s a great blue heron. Alison’s parents were in town last weekend, and we made a visit to Mt Auburn for some spring scenery.

So as I was sitting by the Halcion Pond, the heron showed up. He was walking slowly and methodically around the edge of the pond, occasionally darting his head down to catch a small fish — completely unconcerned by me sitting on the bank or the crowd of photographers with giant lenses who were following him around. He walked right in front of me, about 6-8 feet away.

Alison got this shot from the other side of the pond:

I just returned from a fantastic week of vacation in San Franisco. Lots of cable cars, parks, gorgeous weather, and expeditions down to Santa Cruz and Monterey, plus visits to many good friends we hadn’t seen in quite a while. Here’s the trip according to my sketchbook (which seems to favor mainly animals).

The plane:

The Japanese Tea Garden and Golden Gate Park:

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I recently met, and sketched, some very adorable and well-behaved dogs.