Bluegrass Wild Part Two

BLUEGRASS WILD Species descriptions part 1. The Vero Tapir.

          I have been receiving a lot of inquiries about the animals that are featured in the Bluegrasswild mural series and since space was restricted on the postcards and not to get too wordy on the website, I wanted to go into more detail about the animals here on the blog.  I'll explain a little about the Pleistocene creature depicted in the mural, how I reconstructed it and resources I used to do so, and a brief bio about the living analogues of the animals.  So without Further ado, we will start with the Vero Tapir.

Vero Tapir

Tapirus veroensis

In 1989 fossil jaws were discovered at Hill Top Cave in Trigg County Kentucky.  The Vero Tapir was found in the southern United States and was probably very like the temperate Mountain Tapir (Tapirus pinchaque) of today.

          Tapirs are very interesting animals, and I have been fascinated by them since childhood and I remember seeing one at the Cincinnati zoo, the large black and white Maylayan Tapir and being intrigued by it's coloring.  I learned that Tapirs belong to the group of ungulates known as Perissodactyla or, the odd toed ungulates, a group that also includes horses and Rhinoceros.  There are only a few living species of Perissodactylids compared to the numerous diversity of their hoofed cousins the Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates such as deer, goats, antelope, cattle, giraffes, and camels (which interestingly enough also used to exist in Kentucky).  Although modern Perissodactylids are not nearly as diverse as now as the Artiodactylids, they still are very familiar to us in the form of horses, especially for us here in Kentucky.  The fossil diversity of Perissodactylids had a much broader range of species than their surviving members and they were once just as diverse as the Artiodactylids and included truly enormous animals larger than living elephants like Paraceratherium, a gigantic hornless Rhinoceros-like animal from Asia.  

          The Vero Tapir ok the Kentucky Pleistocene is only know from fragmentary remains, a few jaws and teeth but based on their shape and size they were clearly of a Tapir about the same size as modern day tapirs.  For The reconstruction I basically had modern living species of Tapirs to compare with.  I had always liked the coloration of the baby tapirs of today, which have coats involving intensive spotting and camouflage markings to break up their outline.

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/people/trubble_pics/

           Most of the stripes and spots fade away as the babies grow to adulthood, much like whitetail fawns.  I wanted to include an animal that still retained some of it's variegation into adulthood but still chose to mute the dark splotches on the animals side.  For added drama and effect, I also elected to drape a shadow of an oak branch over the animal, to add depth and position it in it's prime habitat, a low browser capable of navigating very dense forests and jungles, in this case a temperate deciduous oak forests of Pleistocene Kentucky.  Thanks for reading, don't forget to stop by www.Bluegrasswild.com to view the finished pieces and I'll be posting next week about extinct horses of the Bluegrass State.

   

Spinosaurus

My interpretation of the terror of prehistoric North Africa!  The most complete skeleton was destroyed during WWII in Berlin but the sketches and measurements remain.  I have developed the animal around a lowland, valley, river/wetland lifestyle.  It is commonly believed among many academics that Spinosaurus was likely a scavenger and fish/aquatic critter eater and was not likely to have been a swift chase-down predator.  I made the tongue of the animal blue to reflect a possible lure for fish and other aquatic creatures to within snapping distance of the creatures mouth.  I also made the sail a colorful display as well as an air conditioning device that is also a possibility commonly discussed among the scientific community. 

BALD EAGLE

This fine specimen lives at the Salato Wildlife Center about 30 minutes from my hometown. I watched it (I have yet to inquire if it is male or female) fohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifr several minutes and took numerous photographs while it made interesting chirps.

I wanted to select a particularly stoic and regal pose. I used lots of custom brushes which were similar to those taught by David Nash at his workshop 'Pushing Pixels' in Cincinnati. This was also my first go at using some of the new realistic paintbrushes in PS CS5. I intentionally made the background vague as this is a portrait piece. Feedback is welcome.

Salato Bird Oil Paintings.

Cardinal sketch, oil 2011.

Tufted Titmouse Sketch, Oil 2011

These are three small 12X14 one day oil paintings of some local wildlife at the Salato Center.
I recently had a discussion with extraordinary wildlife artist Charles Alexander in which he gave me some great advice on many things but one I spurned into immediate application was to only use my own reference photo's. This at first seemed like some hard advice to follow, It's not always easy to get photo's (especially good photo's) of critters you really want to photograph. This can result from expense of equipment, to time involvement, to access to locations, all of which are challenging for me. So to make up for what I currently lack in free time and extra cash for a safari with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM with extender, I had to improvise and compromise.

As it turns out, I am quite fortunate to live in a state of the union with a bountiful abundance of natural beauty and a great Fish and wildlife service system. Salato center serves as a Visitors Center for the States Department of Fish and Wildlife and is located only 30 minutes from my home in our grand old capital Frankfort.

The photo's I ended up using for these paintings came from just walking around hand held in the parks excellent trails and also from their exquisite indoor bird feeder viewing area. I attended the Backyard Bird Count event there and I think we listed over 20 species, although I didn't get excellent photo's of all the birds.

What I am beginning to accept is that to be a real wildlife artist, you must also be (or have access to) a real wildlife photographer. Working with any budget, I am putting to the test this theorem of using my own reference photo's, the Idea of which I like because it requires you to actively seek out your subject. you are forced to get to know them, study and document them, and this can only serve to improve your work after gaining a familiarity with them.