From Me to You

Whoops, haven't updated in quite a while. I haven't really been as busy art-wise lately; I need to remedy that. Here is a gouache painting of the Beatles copied from some of their Hard Day's Night photos. This was a bit of an experiment in minimal detail. I did rough size sketches of them, and then just went at it with black gouache for the facial features on a blue-gray mat board. Scary doing that, but I didn't make any major mistakes. Except I hate drawing with a ruler so you get wobbly boxes around them.

Sooner or Later You'll Dance with the Reaper

A thought that popped in to my head: the Grim Reaper as a baby. I did a little doodling on brown paper, and came up with these. I thought a pompom and lace around the robe would be funny. I guess these look more like just baby skeletons in clothes than Lil Reapers. I wanted the scythe to look like a little plastic version, like a child's toy and not a real sharp thing.

Ink and gouache.

The Last Course

With these five, I have posted 100 different mammals eating. Whew!

This is a Peary caribou, a subspecies of caribou with a white coat. I like push-ups too!

A Sulawesi palm civet with an artichoke. This is one of my favorites out of all of the paintings.

A tricolored disk-winged bat eats a spoon full of rice. Note the suction cups on the wrists and feet.

Hutias are another grayish rodent. But they deserve love too! She has a wax bean.

If you know me, you could probably guess what mammal #100 would be. Greater bilbies have become "my" animal. I love cupcakes too, so she has one (mmm, red velvet). Hooray!

Thanks for indulging me in this repetitive phase. When I started, I had hoped that I'd paint 100 mammals from 100 different families. Well, taxonomy is an ever-changing science, so by using different (sometimes outdated) sources, I ended up repeating a few. I may go back and paint more so I can have 100 different families. Stay tuned!

Almost finished eating!

A long-crested free-tailed bat with some macaroni and cheese. Nature has some cool hairdos!

This is a Northern Luzon giant cloud rat. With a fried egg.

Silky anteaters are one of my favorite animals. I like when they cover up their faces with their little hands.

This is a chinchilla rat, though I think I made her a bit too chubby. Well, she eats yogurt so she's trying to be healthy.

This red titi monkey has a little slice of squash to eat. I gave her purple nails too.

Yummy, yummy, yummy

An olingo with a honey bun. I used to love these warmed up in the microwave (the pastry, not the procyonid!)

This is not a shark, even though it looks like one. It's a dwarf sperm whale. These are one of the few mammals that I don't think are very cute. Sorry, sperm whales! Enjoy your crab legs anyway.

This tuco tuco must have something to celebrate, with her glass of Martinelli's sparkling cider.

Here's another obscure one: a Chilean shrew opossum. They have chunky tails. She has a Twinkie.

A red-fronted lemur with some asparagus.

Long Tails or No Tails

I would like to see a streaked tenrec in real life. Maybe it would like some ramen too.

Greater gliders can be quite a variety of colors. These skates are the kind that I used to have to rent at the roller rink!

A slow loris with a ramune soda. I wonder if she knows how to get the marble out.

This is a green ringtail possum. She has a tomato, but it might be for throwing at bad comedians instead of eating.

Scaly-tailed squirrels are an odd bunch. I couldn't find much information about them. No one is quite sure where they fit in relation to other mammals. This is a Lord Derby's scaly-tailed squirrel with a forkful of salad.

Food by the slice!

It's tea party time with the pygmy beaked whale. She's made some watercress sandwiches.

A honey possum and the tiniest pizza slice.

A marsupial mole is glad to see a cucumber slice.

Here's a degu, another slightly obscure rodent species. She has a taquito with guacamole.

I like pumpkin pie as much as this prehensile-tailed porcupine does.

Five Epicures

OK, this hairy-nosed wombat is not drinking a beer! It's an Orange Julius, in a glass. All of my mammals are teetotalers.

This is a spotted bat with a spoonful of Cheerios. The spots are on the bat's back, by the way.

Amazonian manatees have white patches on their undersides sometimes. The one here likes eating fishsticks.

Kinabalu ferret badgers aren't seen much in art, are they? They're cute Bornean badgers (not ferrets). She might share her waffle with you.

Who doesn't like a good numbat? This one has an onigiri, they only food that was suggested to me.

Ingest that food!

A pudding-holding spotted hyena. Pudding is always better with whipped cream and a cherry!

Hippos like to eat plates of peas.

This is a pocket gopher with an anpan (Japanese bun with red bean paste). I don't know if she likes it or not.

Sushi tarsier! Another animal that just doesn't look right with tiny eyes, since their eyes are usually giant.

A long-eared jerboa is about to eat a cheese doodle.

Five More Mammals

A drumstick-carrying springhaas. It must be from a little sparrow or something; kind of sad I guess.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I forgot what this Chacoan peccary is supposed to be eating. I think it's a Rice Krispy treat, or a sponge... At least she has nice red shoes.

Southern giraffes love candy corn almost as much as noncandy corn. I wonder if they've ever tried to make candy corn on the cob.

The pacarana (different than the paca previously seen here) has a glass of grape juice. And a fine cap.

No, I didn't forget the dorsal fin, and it's not under her dress. This is a finless porpoise, not a beluga. She's eating some red licorice.

Mammals Small and Gnawy

A naked mole rat about to have a tiny fish steak.

This is a rabbit viscacha. Very cute little animals who enjoy horchata.

A golden mole grips a yam. Or is it a sweet potato? I always forget the difference between them.

Here's a kangaroo rat with a radish.

Last in this batch is a white faced tree rat. This is a species of spiny rat (they have pokey little hairs mixed in). She's got a blueberry bagel.

Still Hungry

A mountain beaver (not to be confused with regular beavers) is a primitive rodent. This one is a churro fan.

This one does not look good this big. I apologize for the messy koala; the actual painting is probably the smallest one so far, and is about 3/4ths of an inch high. At least she's proud of her curly fry.

A bonneted Atlantic white-sided dolphin is about to sip her magical underwater pink lemonade. I made the head look more like a bottlenose though; they have less prominent rostrum.

Little Red Riding solenodon takes a cheddar biscuit to grandma's house. They are strange animals.

You can see that I painted this one before Easter. This orangutan has some Peeps. I'll admit, orangutans are not my favorite animals, but all other apes are too dark to show up well on the black paper. Sorry, Pongo.