sketch: giant squid vs whale

Two giants of the seas battle each other for dominance. This is an alternate drawing of my giant squid vs whale theme. Perhaps they are not fighting, but actually kissing?

illustration: stone crab

The first time I heard about the Stone Crab was when I was in Miami, Florida.  Apparently, they are a favorite dish down there.  When they are caught, the trick is to just take their claws, so that the crustacean can live on and grow back the claw.  Poor crabs.  What a life.

This is the third crab I’ve done in watercolor, in addition to the Blue Crab and the Dungeness Crab.

drawing: blue whale

In the ocean hall of the American Museum of Natural History, hangs a life-sized replica of the largest animal on Earth, the Blue Whale.

The is definitely the grandest still-life I had ever drawn. It was extra special to do because groups of school kids would pass behind me and comment. They were amused by my sketching of the enormous subject.

This is my first post of 2011. Happy New Year, everybody!

painting: three trilobites

Trilobites were prehistoric anthropods that existed in the waters during early the Cambrian age (525 million years ago) to the Permian age (250 million years ago). Mainly, bottom-feeders, their diet consisted of plankton.

My watercolor painting illustrates three trilobites passing each other in the shallow ocean floor. Naturally, the only evidence of their activity appears in fossil form, but I wanted to depict them as alive. After all, the trilobite species reigned on the Earth for hundreds of millions of years.

illustration: angler fish

Based on a real creature from the deepest realm of the sea, this illustration is of an angler fish, and an unsuspecting little guy.

Happy Earth Day, by the way. Let’s do something to help our environment, such as recycle our disposables properly, or bike to our destinations more. Continue good habits every day! Do environmentally sound things so that all creatures, great and small, can live on as naturally as possible.

Have you done something for Earth today?

sketch: prehistoric shark

The Dunkleosteus, a prehistoric shark, lived in the Late Devonian period, 380-360 million years ago.  It grew to as big as 33 feet in length.

illustration: prehistoric sea

My pen and ink drawing of sea life found in the Devonian period, 416 to 359 million years ago, during the Paleozoic era.   A print of this is for sale at my shop.