What I am not, however, is a watercolorist.
I would like to be one, someday, but for now I'm in that experimentation stage where nothing is very good... and it took me a fair amount of time to get here. But I have decided that I like these little doodles. Not because they're great watercolors, but because they give my journal a shot of color and life, which, if you've read my journals (which tend to be composed primarily of lists and complaints), you'd know that they sorely need.
I'm working on an illustration of a Harpy Eagle for one of my classes. I read somewhere that Harpy Eagles have facial disks, like owls, as a result of convergent evolution. Unlike owls, though, Harpies create their disks by raising their feathers. When the feathers aren't raised, the Harpy has a noble profile.
Puget Sound is home to three pods of resident Orcas, numbering (in total) more than 80 of these very large ocean dolphins. The resident Orcas eat only fish and can be quite vocal, whereas transient Orcas eat all manner of sea mammals and are completely silent. (The things you can learn in class...) I made this little doodle while sitting in one of the Starbucks shops at SeaTac after my flight had been cancelled. The act of concentrating on my little painting was actually quite calming.
I found this image in one of the most amazing magazines ever, BBC Wildlife. A couple of months ago they did a feature story about Caracals.
I'm working on another set of illustrations for a different class, of the Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit. Extinct in the wild, this genetically distinct cousin of the Idaho Pygmy Rabbit lived in portions of Douglas County, Washington. The reasons for its genetic extinction are unknown, but it looks like it may have been a combination of factors including (but not necessarily limited to) habitat destruction and disease. The Idaho Pygmy Rabbit failed to gain federal endangered species protections last year, and because its range is - over time - being converted for agricultural use, it may eventually meet a similar fate.
Another magazine find, this time on a bumpy flight back to Spokane from Seattle. It was soothing to think about how I would approach this little doodle while we were being buffeted by crosswinds on approach.
All of these doodles are being done in my Moleskine sketchbook journal and I didn't spend more than 45 minutes to an hour on any of them... the paper isn't noted for being great watercolor paper, but for my purposes it works just fine.
