Saturday, October 6, 2012

Curiosities

Over at the "Sketchbook Challenge" Judy Coates Perez is the theme picker...
True to form, Judy gave us an interesting and multi-layered one, "Cabinet of Curiosities".

Through the magic of the internet (and my photo saving program), I'll share one of my posts on that theme.

I love Judy's theme this month!

When my family went to the museums in Washington a few years ago, the Museum of Natural History was my favorite place. I loved all of the skeletons and odd little things that building houses and really didn't realize until that day just how much I love skeletons.
Since most "Cabinets of Curiosities  have at least one skeleton in them, I'll share one of my sketches that I did this summer from a magazine ad.
My husband and I were doing some volunteer work and I found myself stuck in an (almost) empty college apartment with nothing to do.
Thank goodness I had a sketchbook, pen & pencil and a promotional magazine from Western North Carolina (I live very close to the SC/NC line). (edit "The Laurel of Asheville" July 2012)
Just goes to show you that you need to carry a sketchbook with you every where you go!
I had already drawn everything in the room (my chair, the desk, my camera and my sewing machine) so it was time to find something else to draw to pass the time.
So I opened the magazine.
Hmmm...several possibilities as I flipped through it rather quickly.
But then I saw it - a beautiful tiny little ad about fossils (Cornerstone Minerals) that had a photo of a dinosaur skull in it.
Bingo! I grabbed my pencil, pen, travel watercolors and went to work.

I usually draw straight to paper with a pen but this time I sketched a bit in pencil then outlined that in pen.
I don't have any step by step photos so I'll just share the  final sketchbook page (regular readers of my blog have seen this already).



This would probably fit right in if I had a "Cabinet of Curiosities" in my home.

Oh wait - I DO have a tiny version of this already (my morbid curiosity with skeletons)!



A friend of mine sent me an owl pellet (don't ask).
I opened it up and found  a bunch of teeny tiny bones.
I put all of them in a small corked bottle (it's about one inch tall).
I was waiting to use it on a piece of artwork but maybe I'll have to find me a cabinet to put it in...


2 comments:

Joanne Huffman said...

tis the season for skeletal art. I'd love to see a drawing of your bone jar, too.

Anonymous said...

I see that you still have those owl pellets. The owls still winter here. I also saw that you are part of the 8 that create--grand things that you are doing.

Liked your comments about the silk dyeing--maybe I will try that.

Keep safe in the coming storm event. Judy Haas.