4 Favorite Place: Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum

I was a bit stumped on what to depict for “my favorite place.” My first ideas all fit the top four frames of this hilarious image here by Grant Snider.

But doing something like “lost in a good book” or “dreaming” seemed too blatantly escapist and a tad creepy, like I live in my parents basement Boo Radley style. (I don’t)

So after some thinking I decided my favorite places are spots where I can be around a lot of old things and dead things and draw them and the other people that come to look at them. There are actually a good number of these places:

Libraries

Archives

Museums

Historical Landmarks

Old Cities

Family Reunions…

I think my favorite museum I’ve visited was the British Museum, but I’ve only been once on my honeymoon and didn’t really get much of a chance to draw. (New Life Goal: go back and draw)

So my favorite place IS the Monte L Bean Life Science Museum in Provo, UT. I love that place. Tons of stuffed animals just sitting around, begging to be drawn. Most hilarious storage closets. I helped clean some out – hand me that tiger head. can you hold this duck?  During my zoology days, I was part of the volunteer staff, and aside from cleaning out closets, I gave talks to school kids and boy scouts on natural history topics and helped paint mural backdrops.

Most importantly I spent hours there learning how to draw, practicing everything from wolves to swans to the liger and a mouse taxidermied to look like a beaver in a small beaver dam model.

So here’s the drawing. 

I went for quantity over finish on this image, because drawing dozens of deer heads is way too much fun.

Some of you might be wondering about how my “days” of the 30 day challenge work. I have other work I’m trying to balance and while I do my drawing every day, it seems to take me a little longer to get it posted. I am limiting myself to a 24 hour period to work on a picture. So I’ll be moving along, and you should see #5 a friend of mine in the near future.

 

River Otter

This image is doing double duty. It’s #2 for the 30 day drawing challenge, my favorite animal, the North American river otter. I love drawing animals, especially animals with hair. Hair makes the best lines.

But I decided on a river otter because they seem to do such a good job at enjoying life. Whenever I’ve seen one, it’s either playing at high speed or sleeping. If I have to be reincarnated, and I’ve been very good in this life, I’m hoping for a gig on a nice broad forested river as an otter. A swamp locale would be okay too.

I worked hard to get a watery look to the background so I thought this would fit Illustration Friday’s “water” topic too.

Self-portrait on Blue

 

Lately this is what I look like when I’m painting/drawing. Can I tell you how much I love my sweater slippers? It’s a struggle to make myself take them off when I climb into bed at night. Also, I think I’m starting to look pregnant. I tried to be accurate, but in my head I feel more like one of those prehistoric venus figurines.

I’ve been feeling pretty blue about my work. I feel stuck on a plateau that is ugly. UGLY. I need a break through. I devoutly believe the best way to get better at anything is to DO it. Sitting around feeling bad about nothing looking good isn’t going to get me out of my funk or make me any better right? So enough of this pity party.

I think I might try out the 30 day drawing challenge that’s been floating around the internet. If I do it, this would be #1 – self portrait.