Travis the Giraffe

My latest painting is a portrait of Travis, a giraffe that lives at the Toledo Zoo in Toledo, Ohio.

For a small fee you can feed Travis from a platform that puts you high enough to look him straight in the eye. I took a photo moments after my partner had fed him and it was that photo that I used as reference for this painting. Overall, I'm happy with this but as always there are areas I need to work on. Even though I tried several times I couldn't get the wrinkles in his ears so they looked three dimensional. I had to stop fussing with it or I would have had a hole in the paper!

For a long time I didn't visit the zoo because it was sad to see all of these beautiful animals kept captive but I've softened my view over the years. This isn't a perfect world and what humans have done to the environment and the wildlife that inhabits it is appalling. I now feel zoos have their place and they, among other organizations, are helping to ensure these beautiful animals are around for future generations to enjoy.

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A Day in the Coop

I wrote this in a notebook while "babysitting" in the chicken coop on Friday 10/2/15. I'm sitting on the bottom roosting pole in the chicken coop surrounded by six curious, lively baby chicks and one cranky older hen that Robin calls "Godzilla." She's giving them the "evil eye" while scratching and digging in the bedding and tossing it around, trying to scare them. Today, they seem less frightened by her, although they are still wary and scatter if she approaches too close. They're trying to scratch in the shavings just like big chickens; some of them are even flapping up in an attempt to perch on the roosting poles. They're a little shaky, but they'll catch on. We've been watching the babies, trying to sort out individual personalities so we could give them names. Some of them were easy: Amelia Earhart--the blue Ameracauna who was trying to fly at the age of one day, and Maggie--the other blue Ameracauna, a real sweetie who k...

Simple Watercolor Sketches

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Santa Carvings

It's never too early to think about Christmas, especially if you carve Santas! I recently completed one with a teddy bear, one with a chickadee and lastly, a Santa carved from cottonwood bark. Santa with Chickadee I'm big on birds and one of my favorites is the chickadee so I couldn't wait to incorporate one into a Santa carving. This Santa is carved from basswood, with acrylic paints and finished with two coats of satin varnish and one coat of wax. https://www.etsy.com/listing/235841817/hand-carved-santa-with-staff-and?ref=shop_home_active_3 Cottonwood Bark Santa My cottonwood bark Santa is carved from a piece of bark I found lying along the shoreline of Lake Erie. To give it an extra special rustic look I left some of the bark on the carving. This carving is painted with acrylic paints and finished with two coats of satin varnish and one coat of wax. https://www.etsy.com/listing/236475497/hand-carved-rustic-santa-robin-arnold?ref=shop_home_active_1 ...

Robin Arnold Art

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