Robin Arnold Art

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 ...

Gena and I are again in search of salamanders. The last 4 years put a huge damper on our evening activities because of Gena being unceremoniously dumped on afternoon shift. After 47 years of working in a lab she officially retired at the end of 2015 so we can now pick up where we left off. We went out two nights when the conditions seemed to be perfect--warm and rainy--but we didn't see anything except hundreds of earthworms. We know they're out there somewhere but until we actually find a live one I will have to be content to draw pics of what it would be like to shine the flashlight on one or two of these amphibians. This intriguing pair  were big enough to chew off a foot but fortunately they were smiling and seemed quite friendly. I have no clue where they got the umbrella!

 Gena and I have had a problem with this ever since we've had chickens. We also have tons of rabbits and every year a few of them go the Easter Bunny route. We have actually caught them in the coop, yanking eggs out of the next boxes. This particular hen has obviously made a deal with one of the bunnies in return for a pile of dew worms. This was a very fast sketch using Micron pens and watercolor. I had a fever while I did this so that might explain a lot :)

The last few days have been gorgeous in Ohio; so gorgeous that the bullfrogs are lined up all along the bank of the pond enjoying the sun. They know that soon they'll be buried in the muck until spring so they're taking advantage of this bonus weather. I sketched this little guy near the back of the house along with his snaky friend. The drink is swamp juice, a replacement for orange juice in northwest Ohio. The frogs weren't the only ones basking in the sun. This is Susie and Harriet, two of our 8 week old hens we bought from a hatchery in Polk, OH. Susie, on the left, is a Barred Rock and Harriet is a Golden Laced Wyandotte.

Sketching and painting from my photos hasn't been going well lately so after disgustedly  throwing another one in the waste basket I decided to try sketching without any reference material. I figure I'm almost 60 years old so there should there be something floating around in my head that I can pull out. The first one I sketched was this Teddy bear sitting on a rug drinking a beer and eating snacks.  I went to bed thoroughly  bummed out after spending the evening trying to sketch an animal from one of my photos . While I was swearing  I would never try this crazy stuff again I picked up my sketchpad to do who knows what. I had no reference photo and I wasn't interested in drawing a blob of fur from one of our two dogs who were already curled up in a ball and fast asleep. In around 15 minutes I had drawn this very simple Teddy bear and the following morning I added the watercolor which really made it pop. Is it perfect?...not by a long shot. Teddy lo...

It got pretty interesting in the marsh last night! I saw frogs, turtles and our resident Bigfoot flying around on brooms. It was too dark for photos so I tried to sketch it but the action was so fast and furious it was tough to get on paper. It should be even better tonight....stay tuned!