Sealacanth Studios: Organism Project (Auklet

First off, I finished my second project in my painting class this week, which was a master copy of Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son. Clearly I couldn't get down the "dark" aspect of the painting, and it turned out extremely bright... but I tried my best to capture the tonal differences and contrast. Here is a side by side comparison of my copy and the original so you can see all of the mistakes I made:

The hands were very challenging...

Our next painting project is a dreaded self-portrait, which I started a little bit today. I think I arranged the lighting set up longer than I actually painted.

self-portrait sketch/set up

with color

I decided to go the Alice Neel route with my color scheme, because she's awesome. (If you want to check out her work, Artsy has a wonderful page on her: https://www.artsy.net/artist/alice-neel )

This week is also the second week of my personal drawing challenge. I still haven't finished my third dragonfly drawing, but I must keep up with the pace and I am moving on to my next organism - the Auklet. This crazy sea bird has many different species, most of which live only near Alaska or the Pacific coast sadly, so we will never have the pleasure of seeing one in person here. But we can always look at pictures of them on Google:

Crested Auklet

Least Auklet

Whiskered Auklet

Rhinoceros Auklet

Since there are so many species I figured I would make a couple drawings of my favorite ones (these shown above), and I've started sketching a couple already:

Crested Auklet study - 2B graphite pencil

Whiskered Auklet mug shot sketch - 2B graphite pencil

Whiskered Auklet mug shot - 18"x24" ink stippling

And I apologize for the horrible image quality of my drawings. Photoshop is currently not working on my computer, and I only draw at night, so this is the outcome.

Lastly, today's "scientific illustrator," or really just animal painter, is Rosa Bonheur. Bonheur painted and sculpted animals, from livestock to bengal tigers, throughout the 19th century, and remains one of the most successful female artists to ever live. Having grown up with a father who was both a well trained artist and an outspoken socialist, Bonheur became an artist herself and she asserted her feminist ideals in the art world (most famously by wearing men's clothing and smoking cigars). During a time where women were not allowed into most art schools, Rosa was trained solely by her father from an early age, and it was her father who introduced her to drawing from nature. She grew to love and respect the subject of animals, so much so that she rarely deviated from them in her artwork. Her depictions of wildlife are truly amazing, and I had the awesome pleasure of seeing some in person at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota!!! These aren't the greatest pictures in the world, but here are a couple I took: