Yesterday at work, I was doing my best to block out background noise while processing an auto loan application. However, I was having a difficult time, as my co-workers kept mentioning somebody named ‘Megan’ and how she’d had a baby.
“Did you hear? Megan Markle had her baby?”
“Oh yeah, I guess it just happened.”
“Yeah… Cool!”
“Who’s Megan Mackeral?” I asked, looking up from my computer monitor.
The room grew silent.
“Please tell me you’re kidding,” my co-worker Abby barked in disgust.
“Um, no…,” I responded. “Is that one of our customers? Do we need to send out a ‘Congratulations’ card?”
Whenever one of our customers had a birthday or wasn’t feeling well or reached some sort of milestone, we often sent out the appropriate card, if we were reminded of the event during a phone with said customer.
Apparently, there was no card to be sent out. Just more silence…
“You can’t be serious… ,” another colleague and friend piped up.
“I have no idea who you’re talking about. Who’s Megan Mackeral?”
“It’s MARKLE! And it’s Prince Harry’s wife!” said Abby, groaning a second time.
“Oh… Well, I’m not British, so I wouldn’t know about that,” I responded.
“It’s not a question of being British,” another coworker chimed in. “This has been everywhere. How could you not know!?”
“I don’t pay attention to pop culture,” I countered. “It doesn’t affect me, so I’m not interested. Frankly, I can’t stand it.”
“Dave… she’s been pregnant for nine months. How could you have not heard for that entire time?”
“Abby, I’ve been in an apartment for just over thirteen months, and I’ve purposely not hooked up cable or TV for this specific reason. I have the internet for Netflix and Hulu, and I just choose what I want to watch.”
All of my co-workers just shook their collective heads in disbelief, apparently unable to fathom that a 41-year old male living in Rochester, New York was unfamiliar with the name of the woman who married a gentleman living in another country and carried his baby.
“My cable TV is just outside my window,” I continued. “It’s called ‘birds’… and they’re everywhere right now. I could literally sit on my apartment balcony and watch and listen to them for hours.”
“Dave, you need to expand your horiz–“
“Abby,” I interrupted thoughtfully. “The Baltimore orioles are returning to the area. Did you know that some of them travel as far as South America for the winter.”
“That’s FASCINATING!” called out Emily, from her cube across the room.
“I know! And when they return in the spring, they come back to the exact same spot every year!”
I could have continued, but none of my colleagues seemed interested in learning about the annual migration cycle of the Baltimore oriole.
Frankly, I’m not sure why my coworkers were so shocked by my nativity regarding the royal family. Several years prior, I’d been chastised for not being familiar with Graceland.
A coworker had been discussing her recent road trip, which had brought her through Tennessee, and she’d referenced this magical place called ‘Graceland’.
“What’s Graceland?” I’d called out in curiosity.
Again… stunned disbelief from everyone in the room. And none of my reasoning, which seemed perfectly logical to me, seemed to resonate with my colleagues. I had tried explaining that my parents listened to classical music when I was growing up, and not Elvis… or that we weren’t taught about Graceland in school.
“It has nothing to do with school,” Abby had said. “But don’t you listen to the radio?”
“My sister had Top-40 radio on all the time in the 80s,” I’d responded. “Wasn’t Elvis dead by then? None of his music would have been on Top-40 radio.”
Every explanation I offered seemed perfectly logical to me, and yet, my coworkers got more and more agitated every time I tried to defend myself. After a while, I actually grew quite fond of blowing their minds with every nugget of pop culture of which I was unaware.
Anyways… Enough about the crazy mishaps and wacky adventures I experience at the cube farm. The primary reason for this post is to share three new works of art that I’ve completed during the past two weeks…
The Great Horned Meowl
This wacky creation arose out of my desire to do another owl, along with the uncertainty of what breed of owl to attempt. I didn’t really want to draw my third barred owl in a row, but all of the other breeds I considered had patterns in their feathers that just blurred together, as opposed to appearing truly distinct and striped, as is the case of the barred owl. At first, I was going to throw a great horned owl’s head on the body of a barred owl. Then, I had an epiphany…
I’m the artist. I can draw whatever the hell I want.
With that, I decided to blend the head of my tiger cat Snickers with the body of a barred owl and the feet and talons of a great horned owl. And so after several days work, the Great Horned Meowl was born.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. My sister took one look at the peculiar creation and told me I need to write and illustrate a kids book. My brother-in-law said that the picture reminded him of the illustrations in the famous kids book, “Where the Wild Things Are”, by Maurice Sendak. I’ll take both as wonderful complements.
I was about to finish with the purple background when I decided that some sort of a moon was necessary. And as I finished the moon, I then decided on a whim to have it sort of “vomiting” towards the horizon.
My one complaint is with the yellow feathers on the back of the creature. In an attempt to shade and re-shade to get the shadows correct, I sort of smudged out the bright yellow colors. Part of it had to do with me having issues with keeping the point of the black pencil sharp. This is definitely an area on which I can improve.
Bird-Ears Tabby
For this fellow, I was originally going to give him standard cat ears and have a few birds lounging on his head. At the last minute I thought, Why not give him birds for ears?
I first considered chick-a-dees and cardinals, but neither of them resembled the shape of a cat’s ears in their naturally perched position. And then, I thought of the nuthatch, which looks fairly natural in any position, as it’s constantly shimmying up and down trees in all directions. I initially was going to include legs and talons, having them perched on the cat’s head. But I decided the blending effect would appear a bit more imaginative and whimsical.
Once I got started on this creation, it literally came together in less than 24 hours, as I became extremely inspired and absorbed in my work. I laid down the basic shapes in graphite pencil during the course of a Saturday afternoon at Fairpour. After a quick trip to my apartment for dinner, I headed back out and parked myself at the bar at Iron Smoke, where I added color to my creation. This particular work earned so much positive feedback and attention from bar patrons that I gave my blog address out to at least a half dozen people, all wanting to know where they could see more of my work. I was once again scolded by strangers for not having a business card to hand out.
All I can say is… I’m working on it.
As I put the finishing touches on my creation, one of the nuthatches caught my eye. I couldn’t shake the thought that it reminded me of another creature. Something about the fact that it was missing its legs as it blended into the cat’s head lead me to consider it from a completely different perspective.
…and then I saw the alligator…
…which lead to…
Unsuspecting Nuthatch Casserole
I absolutely love this one. As I stared at the nuthatch from my previous drawing, I noticed the distinct separation of the blue/gray back from the white underside. Immediately, I knew what had to be done.
I began by establishing the position of the bird to the far right, and then I sketched in what would eventually become the gator. Initially, I just drew the body of another nuthatch to correctly render its basic features. Then, I sketched a second underside of the bird just below the existing belly, in order to ensure I had the proper size and proportions. Once I was satisfied, I erased the original underbelly, before pulling up a picture of an open-mouthed alligator on my phone and transferring some of its features to my mutant creation.
This turned out to be another case where I decided at the last minute to add lots of extras to the picture. Originally, it was just going to be the gator pursuing the lone nuthatch, along with some branches. However, as I was studying all the empty space, I realized I could cram three or four additional birds in the picture. I love the busy nature of the final product… a handful of birds in multiple angles and orientations.
This was also popular with the crowd at Iron Smoke. At first viewing, the presence of the gator was lost on several people, as it was almost overpowered by the other birds. But eventually, most people noticed it and were pleasantly surprised.
One of my friends was pretty blunt when I forwarded her copies of these three completed products.
“What makes you think of this shit?” she texted back.
Good question…
Maybe I’ve always wondered what a cat would look like with an owl’s body. Maybe there are too many pictures and renderings of normal owls and cats out there, and I’d prefer to provide an interpretation that’s a bit more unique.
Maybe I have so many images, pictures, and memories of the animals I love that I’m not afraid to ask, “What if… ?”
Whatever the case may be, I’m certainly having a lot of fun.
StudioCrowlogue 26.2 