Friday, January 30, 2015

More Art from Beatrice

A fox, in watercolor and oil pastels
Beatrice continues to draw now for hours every day. A few of her recent works:
 
Martin Luther King, Jr. giving his "I Have a Dream" speech
A queen
A page from Beatrice's book, Indra's Sleepover
White blood cells attacking germs
Glenda and the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz
 
A crab

Shackleton looking at Arthur the fish (I like the composition here - the fish bowl is in the foreground and Shack is in the background, viewed through the bowl, licking his lips.)

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

You Have Plenty of Time to Love Them Later

Wow, what a week! I am very pleased - and more than a little surprised - by what a great response I've had from You Have Plenty of Time to Love Them Later.

I originally wrote this as an email to my friend Sommer Browning when she was pregnant with her daughter. I decided to post it on Medium on January 7 and since then it's been viewed almost 200,000 times and counting. And I've gotten so many nice notes and messages from people all over the country, too.  Thanks, everyone!

Monday, January 19, 2015

Taxidermy Class: Shoulder Mounts

I just got back from another class with Prey Taxidermy.  Today my regular teacher Allis Markham was joined by her mentor Tim Bovard, the head taxidermist at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, who has been working in the field for 51 years.  Also helping me was Katie Innamorato, a visiting East Coast taxidermist who specializes in foxes (and has a live pet fox of her own for reference).
 
Two foxes in the class (mine is on the right). There were also two raccoons, a coyote, and a beaver.

Last time, Dev and I did a partners class together where we prepped a raccoon, my first time skinning, cleaning, and tanning an entire large mammal.  (I won't post pictures from that class since they were pretty graphic.  Dev did really well, though, he's a natural.)

Today I learned part two of working with a mammal, putting it all back together.  I worked on a grey fox while someone else in the class mounted the raccoon Dev and I had skinned.

We started with a skinned, tanned pelt and spent eleven hours reconstructing it, using everything from a Dremel to a hammer and anvil. 

My fox form
First we prepped the skins and did a little extra defleshing and cleaning. 

Then we fitted the pelts to polyurethane body forms.  We started with a premade form and then custom shaped it using saws, Dremels, and files as well as Bondo putty and epoxy.  We also used clay to sculpt the body contours and fill out the facial features.

My form being fitted with glass eyes, clay, and glue
Much of the class dealt with making ear inserts out of lead or plastic, shaping and inserting them, and locking them into place in the polyurethane "skull."  We also spent a long time on eye placement and on creating a realistic, detailed nose and lips.

Finally we stitched everything up, did a lot of fine-tuning, and worked on details like ear tufts and whiskers.


A lot of the class focused on carefully studying reference photos of live animals in different poses to create accurate reproductions.  I learned a ton about foxes, especially about their eyes (did you know that a fox's pupils are set at a slight angle? Or that in a resting state their upper eyelids cover all of the iris and part of the pupil but the lower eyelid reveals a band of iris below the pupil? etc.)

After the fox dries in 2-3 weeks I'll go back for the final steps: washing, conditioning, and fluffing the fur; mounting the fox onto a wooden plaque; and painting the nose and eyelids.

Next I can't wait to do a full-body mammal mount and then maybe some more practice with birds . . .

(I also got to keep the scrap fox fur we trimmed off his neck - I think I'll make it into a bracelet.)

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

William's (Tiny) Birthday Party

William's igloo cake
Poor William! We had planned a party for him on Sunday in our neighborhood park* but it rained all weekend so we canceled the big event with 18 kids and instead we just had a small family party with my parents; Lucas, Veronika, and the twins; and William's best baby friend, Cylas, with his parents Eric and Adrienne.

Hot chocolate, coffee, and regular and chocolate milk
But even with only a few guests, I think William had a pretty great time. (So great, in fact, that he went to nap around 3pm and slept clear through until the following morning.)


 


 
 
 



(And yes, now I owe him a big party next year...)

* Our backyard is under construction so we couldn't host it at home.

Thursday, January 08, 2015

YMCA of the Rockies: Snow Mountain Ranch


Earlier this year, Mina somehow managed to organize a group of 15 adults and 8 kids for a week-long trip to the YMCA of the Rockies in Granby, Colorado - and I'm so glad she did! We loved the resort! In fact, we hope to make it a new annual tradition.

Family snow boots
The road up was a little scary.
We all stayed on one floor of the Indian Peak lodge: Naresh, Suzan, and Julie; Mina, James, Rosemary, and Louis; me, Dev, Beatrice, Arthur, and William; Maureen, Paul, and their friends Mark and Ellen; Dolly, Felix and their kids Sadie (7) and Eli (4); and Katie, Cyrus, and their son Henry (8).



Beatrice and Rosemary
James, Rosemary, Louis (hiding), Mina, Sadie, Dolly, and Eli
Maureen, Mark, and Ellen

Suzan and Julie
Talking under the table
Beatrice and Louis
Every morning we started off the day with breakfast in the cafeteria (this was the highlight of William's day). Then we would go out to do a different activity, like dog sledding, cross-country skiing, or tubing.

On Tuesday we all went dog sledding:


Mina, Rosemary, and Louis returning from the trail





Louis, Henry, and Arthur make a snow cave.


Dev and Arthur
Beatrice gets ready to go.
Beatrice and me

 

Cross-country skiing and snowshoeing:

Rosemary and Maureen

Louis skis for the first time
 


Sadie was an amazing skier.

Naresh and Suzan
 
Julie, Mina, and Suzan

James stops to consult the map.
Beatrice went cross-country skiing for the first time and she did great! She was very slow, of course, and fell down a lot, but I was so proud of her good attitude. She skied for hours without ever complaining or giving up.

 
 
After lunch in the cafeteria, we'd go back out into the snow again - or take a break inside with activities like roller skating in the rec center, board games in the library, or crafts in the craft lodge.

Tubing:

Beatrice, Rosemary, and Sadie

The girls with Henry and Eli

Arthur rockets down the hill alone


James goes down with Rosemary, Louis, Beatrice, and Sadie.
Cyrus launches Henry and Eli.


Paul and Maureen
 
 Staying indoors:

Roller skating in the recreation center
 





Playing Candyland in the library
Reading a book about dog sledding
After pre-dinner cocktails and dinner in the cafeteria, we put the kids to bed and then hung out around the fireplace in the lounge. It was pretty much an ideal week.


Louis and Arthur playing a board game
 
Reading The Boxcar Children
We spent New Year's Eve staying up playing Cards Against Humanity until toasting at midnight.

Mina and James playing Cards Against Humanity

Mark and Katie
Paul and Maureen

Mina and Dev




Several times during our stay we ran into a pair of foxes living near the lodge, but the most exciting part of my trip was seeing a moose for the first time.  Four moose, in fact! Though my excitement turned to fear when the bull moose got a little too close to James. Luckily everyone was okay, but it was a pretty tense moment.


One of the foxes
A bull moose in the distance
Thank you, Mina! I'm already looking forward to going back next year!

 
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