Dinosaur Class at the UCMP

This past weekend, I attended a special "short course" at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley. This was basically a day-long program of presentations on recent dinosaur research, so basically the most awesome school day ever! Naturally I took notes; any scientific or terminology errors are entirely my fault.

So we end on a mystery, and the dino-romance continues! On the way out I stopped to sketch some Triceratops skulls in the museum library. I think I like the exploded diagram approach...

At the Asian Art Museum

Earlier this year, San Francisco's Asian Art Museum had a great exhibit called "Looking East," which traced the influence of Japanese arts and crafts on Western arts in the later part of the 19th Century. Lots and lots of Japanese ceramics, woodcut prints, etc, plus a lot of prints and paintings by Western celebs like Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, and Otto Eckmann. I ended up taking a lot of notes...

 

There was too much to cover in one day, so I had to go back later and complete the survey.

There's always lots of cool stuff in the permanent collection, too. I always love the gallery of Ganeshas at the entryway.

 

 

Science Stuff

As usual, I have a backlog of unposted drawings to share. Let's catch up! I'll start with a few items of scientific interest.

From September 2015: the second batch of native Western Pond Turtles are released at Mountain Lake Park.

November 2015: A final visit to the Whales exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences.

Speaking of skeletons: Back in October, we went to Michigan to visit family and preview the Haunted Barn at Turk Lake's Topper Shop. On the way back, I discovered that Chicago O'Hare airport has a life-size Brachiosaurus skeleton replica. What a way to spend a layover!

Sketchnote Odyssey, Part One

I'm currently reading Homer's Odyssey for the first time, and just for fun, I'm documenting it as I go along in a kind of cartoon semi-sketchnote form. So far I've been doing a chapter a day, and I'll post them here in batches.

 

Info & Graphics

I've been playing around recently with infographic illustrations, but when you're pressed for time sometimes you end up with more info and less graphics, or vice versa.

These from a recent visit to the California Academy of Sciences are mostly pictures with minimal text. Next time I check out their awesome Whales exhibit, I definitely want to integrate more of the informational content.

The taxidermy collection at the Academy's Naturalist Center is really impressive. I didn't even get around to drawing the roadrunner.

Meanwhile, I did a stint as a graphic recorder for the City of San Mateo, documenting a discussion about the future of the local arts scene. Due to the amount of information I had to get down, the graphics here are pretty minimalist...

One extra perk of that event was that I got to meet daredevil "yarnbomber" Lorna Watt of Knits For Life. You should all be jealous!

SF Zoo Sketchnotes & More

And here's some recent infographic drawing from the San Francisco Zoo. First, sketchnotes based on two recent conservation lectures...

 

Whew! Meanwhile, I also took notes during one of the zoo's Wild Walk guided tours, with the intention of going back and integrating them into a big montage illustration afterwards. As it turned out, doing all that drawing took hours.

After all that infographic effort, it's a positive relief to just doodle a quick owl or a couple of chickens.

March Grab Bag

Things have been pretty busy these last couple of weeks, but I've gotten in a bit of location sketching here and there...

A quick pass at the California Academy of Sciences. I paid a visit to the awesome chambered nautilus...

...and then scaled up to 11x17 paper for a montage of fishes from the flooded Amazon forest exhibit.

The Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority sent a couple of lovely vintage-style tall ships around the San Francisco Bay Area. After some preliminary sketching in San Francisco...

...I went to Sausalito with the SF Sketchers meetup group, and spent the afternoon on this fully labeled drawing of the Hawaiian Chieftain.

Another SF Sketchers outing, this time to my neighborhood oasis of Stow Lake...

...where you'll find many gorgeous Muscovy ducks.

 

It's been a while since I've gotten out to the San Francisco Zoo, but I did pay a quick visit to these fine alpacas.

Oh, and somewhere along the way, Julie and I went to the American Conservatory Theater to see the very interesting Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play. I guess it really has been a busy month!

Sketchnotes II

Time for another roundup of sketchnote samples. First, here's an actual live recording of Rodney Jackson's recent lecture on snow leopard conservation at the San Francisco Zoo. (For more info, see the Snow Leopard Conservancy website.)

So that was a good opportunity to test my cartoon note-taking in the wild. Otherwise, I'm still using the TED Talk video library as raw practice material, bringing in some highlight colors as I go along...

I found to my chagrin that the hot pink pen I was using on those last two isn't detectable by my scanner, so I had to take photos of the original pages and merge in the colors using Photoshop. That was an unexpected development!