Penguins and Snow

Since it is snowing again, I thought it would post this photo of a picture I drew on the white board at work last year. Anyone who has seen March of the Penguins will understand the "humor" in it. Penguins have to work so hard for everything. Poor penguins. I kind of like snow days when I don't have to go out. Fortunately, I don't have any overdue library books at the moment.

Post Valentine's rhino ballerina

Hi everybody. I didn't post a Valentine's rant this year. Some of you may know how I feel about the portrayal of women on t.v. shows and commercials during the Valentine's season. I won't rant about it this year, but I will just say that I don't like it. Most women I know aren't silly about Valentine's Day. Maybe I just know a bunch of smart women. Well, in fact, I know that I do...

Today we have a little sketch of a rhino ballerina. I did this yesterday before work, and again, the photo was taken with my phone, so it does leave something to be desired. I know pachyderm ballerinas are nothing new. Disney did it oh, so well with the hippos, but I haven't seen a lot of rhino ballerinas. I think rhinos are just begging to be portrayed as ballerinas, especially ballerina princesses.

Update

Since my mom sent me an e-mail insisting that I update my blog, in fear of her wrath, I am obliging. She said she was sick of the milk maid. If I could scan, I would post my finished milk maid, but my desktop computer is sick, so I cannot scan at the moment. So instead, I have this poorly photographed (from my phone) rhino in a sweater. Why a rhino in a sweater you may ask? I will answer that "sweater" was the challenge for Illustration Friday. I thought of adding beads of sweat on the rhino's face, but I just stuck to one meaning of "sweater," even though, for some reason, it looks more like a hockey jersey. It started off as a turtle neck, but evolved into a V-neck. You can still imagine that the rhino is sweating anyway. It is an Indian rhino, so I would imagine that rhinos wearing sweaters in India would be quite hot. But then again, I don't think that rhinos actually sweat, but we can pretend.

I see my last post was on Feb. 1st, so it was more recent than I was thinking, but still a long long time ago. I haven't drawn all that much in the past two weeks, but I do have a couple of things that can be posted if I get them scanned. For now, we will have to be satisfied with the poorly photographed rhino sketch. I should mention that if this was actually scanned, you may be able to see that the bird is wearing a sweater as well.

Vermeer

I know I've said this before, but I love Vermeer's paintings. And I've also said before that his painting "The Milkmaid" is one of my favorites. I love the lighting and the colors and the mood he has captured and I love the expression of quiet contemplation on the woman's face. I would love to have this painting hanging above my couch, but alas, I will have to settle for the 8 1/2 X 11 printed version that I have hanging from the side of my book shelf. Maybe that's better anyway as I can see it from my couch and I don't have to worry about art thieves stealing it. I did a bit of research on Vermeer when I had to lead a class discussion on the book "Girl with a Pearl Earring" when I was in library school. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember that unlike my last featured artist, he was not all that prolific, leaving behind only 37 paintings. I also remember that he fathered a ridiculous amount of children, like 14 or something like that. That is probably why he didn't have time to produce more paintings. Not like he was taking care of the children or anything.

I have a book that features all of his paintings. I like the pages that I have scanned here (see bottom of post) that features crops of many of his female subjects. I have used these pages many times while sketching. I have sketched The Milkmaid a few times and this latest version is for the art card trade. This one is postcard sized, but I have a 2 1/2 X 3 1/2 version that I did a couple of years ago with colored pencil that I will be sending out as well. Maybe I'll scan it later (as in tomorrow) and add it to this post.

One of the things I learned about Vermeer's times is that women basically had 3 options for their lives. They could be a wife and mother, they could be a maid or they could be a prostitute. I have a feeling that all three of these options are featured in these two pages of paintings.