Moving to Tumblr

I am moving my blog! Please update your links to jennyparks.tumblr.com
It is a work in progress, but I find it easier to work with.

National Park iPhone Apps

The apps are finally out! I drew 52 out of the hundreds of wildflowers that are included in these iPhone apps made as field guides to the National Parks. So far the Sequoia and Yosemite National Park apps are available. They include not only wildflowers, but also a tree guide and wild animal tracks guide. More info and links can be found here: http://www.mynaturesite.com/2011/04/mynature-national-parks/
Or, you can find them through the iTunes app store.
$1.00 of each purchase goes to various National Park Foundations, which is pretty awesome.

A sample of one of the illustrations I did for these apps. Cypriperdium montanum.

Sketch - Darwin

While I work on Anchiornis huxleyi (a small, feathered, bird-like dinosaur)... here is a drawing of Darwin. And some finches. I suppose Thomas Huxley would have been more appropriate, but Charles here was more at hand.

Sketch - Tiktaalik roseae

And now, an interlude in the madness that is Wildflower Mania. Everyone's favorite lobe-finned fish... Tiktaalik Roseae! (For more information on this fascinating "missing link" go here: http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/ )

I would love to do another full piece involving Titaalik, but for now a sketch will do.

To accompany this... I absolutely love this image done by the paleo/surrealist artist Ray Troll, in which Darwin is hugging a Tiktaalik... but who does that mysterious hand belong to??

Sickletop lousewort (Pedicularis racemosa)

A simple line drawing of a wildflower done as a sample for a possible upcoming job.

I don't do too many botanical illustration, but it is always nice to break away from the Kingdom of animals for a while and do some plants.

This reminded me an awful lot of being back at the Science Illustration program, though then, I had the luxury of having the real plant in front of me.

I may end up doing a whole bunch of these in the near future...

Sickletop lousewort (Pedicularis racemosa)

Out of the Drawer: Channel Island Fox... finished!

So, some time ago, I started this Channel Island Fox (a small fox related to gray foxes that live solely on these islands off the coast of Southern California) which caused me plenty of frustration, and after many a battle with it, I finally shoved it into a drawer and simply forgot about it for a while...

Well, now it's back! I fixed the background, completely changed what I had planned in the first place, and after doing some research, made the tree an Island Oak, instead of the pine it was beginning to look like at the beginning.

And here it is, completed and entered into the up-coming GNSI show that will be held at the Santa Cruz Natural History Museum, which will be from April 9th to June 4th. I will post more details when they arrive.

(A larger version can be seen here at my deviantart page.)

Figure Drawing - Working the Line

Okay, so I missed plenty of figure drawing sessions this semester, but the last couple I went to I thoroughly enjoyed and ultimately liked the results (and not only because of the company). Here are a few from the last session, a great model with some great poses. I have often felt drawing people to be the bane of my existence (okay, slight exaggeration), but I have greatly improved in this area over the years, and this is largely due to drawing from models. Anyway, enough banter, onto the drawings:

So what might become obvious, is I have come to favor using that lovely non-photo blue before using a regular HB or 2B pencil. I think it lends nicely to my tendency to draw a certain part of the drawing over and over before I get it the way I want it.

This pose was 20 min. and I suppose I had wished I could have had a bit more time on it. But it was in this pose I was getting a hang of getting a clean line while capturing the form of the body.

I think this one is my favorite of the four. Not only for the pose, but I felt like I was getting the lines just where I wanted them. This was also 20 min. and yet again wish I could have finished it. I wanted to get those feet in there!

The last pose was less dynamic, but the added clothing presented an interesting challenge. In the end, quite pleased with how it came out. You'll notice that while I shaded in some small parts of this sketch, with all these drawings I wasn't concerning myself so much with shadow and light, and more with the outline, form and musculature. When I am able to do more figure drawing, I will likely experiment more with shadowing.