Puzzly stuff

In the past couple of days i've gotten a few of photo collages put together. They're scanned individually but i think i want to mat them as a triptych in a single frame mat.

Moth eggs haven't hatched yet. Also wondering when the last species I ordered will come in. I can't wait to have a ton of moths to take photos of :D.

Been watching a lot of Gangland lately. I dunno why... it's the part of American culture that you don't learn in school and the idea of that kind of organization outside of the national and state government that's kind of interesting. Like a glimpse into what post apocalyptic America would be like. But then you'd replace the drugs with food and actual necessary resources... It's 4:38. I'm talking out of my butt. I need to draw more. The whales exhibit at the field museum is pretty much freakin awesome! i plan on spending a lot of time there this summer drawing the whale skeletons and various artifacts. I've only seen the exhibit once so far and i didn't get a very good look but then again it's only been up a week and a half.

Speaking of fish, everyone keeps getting fish. my girlfriend just adopted one and it's a very pretty black beta and it's little tank has a neat fake plant in it. My friend at Frugal Fowl and I both have fish to take care of over the summer too. It kinda makes me want to get one for realsies but i'll def have the coolest seasonal pet... MY MOTHS. If i don't kill em first.

Also today i looked at this wikipedia page about a jelly fish lake filled with jelly fish that don't really harm people because they have evolved to not have very powerful stingers. I think it's because there are no enemies for them in the lake. That's also why it is swarming with jellyfish. I'd heard about it before but googled it for the first time today. here's the wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish_Lake

and a picture :p

it's neat. which reminds me i need to start doing monotypes. I have plans to do an allegory of the seven deadly sins and seven virtues as well as jellyfish monotype drawings.

Anywho... any comments about the images above or anything really is great as feedback is awesome!

1st Day: Project Silkmoth

So i finally got giant silk moth eggs today! So excited! I have invested soo much time into this project it might almost be sad. Whatever it's going to be amazing! These first eggs are Luna Moth eggs and the guy sent me 33 of em!

This lone guy below must've come detached in transit :(. I hope it ends up alright. Moths usually lay their eggs on the underside of leaves with some kind of glue like substance but when breeders have moth eggs, they put them in paper bags to lay eggs because moths won't lay unless alone an undisturbed plus distribution is easier this way. that's the brown stuff you're seeing.

This next image is a dozen or so moth eggs from a giant silkmoth called Promethea. The finger is for scale.

I can't wait to see them hatch! I expect to get a lot of hopefully really good photos and art projects out of this. So I really really hope I can raise them to adults successfully. I keep getting really paranoid about ending up killing them all... so many potential moths... but I've done like 3 months worth of research to make this project as smooth as possible. I'll def post often about it just to keep track of when certain things happen. If all goes well, i'm totally doing this again next summer.

For anyone curious about what could possibly be so hard about raising some caterpillars... well moth caterpillars are picky eaters so I had to research what plants they eat and then prior to today, i had to collect food plants and when they hatch, i will have to experiment to see what each of the worms take and then continue to collect the plants of their choice for them wherever these trees may be. Plus when they're super little, humidity and temperature is a big facture, but as they get bigger, feeding them more often becomes more of a chore and over crowding becomes a problem. These aren't called giant silk moths for nothing. Their caterpillars can get sausage sized! But then once they puppate, they don't have mouths. they live for a few days, look pretty, mate, lay eggs and then die. But getting to see the whole thing happen will be sooo awesome!

Speaking of things potentially dying, i also have acquired a new roommate. A friend of mine left me with their goldfish, muffin, for the summer. "He's fat and sassy." I've already started talking to him a bit. Weird? I THINK NOT!

P.S. been looking at a lot of blue prints of conoco oil stuff. just finished matting a bunch for my friend. posting pictures of that soon.

Antarctica

So here are a couple drawings for a friend of mine. He wanted a circular map tattoo for his elbow that represented science and the idea of continued exploration. I figured that a map of Antarctica would be good. I'm really drawn to the idea of starting off on the utmost bottom like the south pole and having north all around you to explore. Also Antarctica seems like one of the closest things to space on earth. Seemingly barren but teaming with information. I kind of have a fixation with the place so I went ahead and used it for my blog name.

1st Post

So I was planning on starting this blog a week ago when school ended so i could keep better tabs on my work... but whatever. Started my first official day of fossil prep. Even got pictures of my work space and specimen:




Also have some summer work documented I s'pose. The first couple are collaged photographs. One is an image of insect nests from the Field Museum collection and the other is a picture of a vile of beetle larvae I found while I was taking photos of butterflies for the collection. The last image is something i'm still experimenting with. I'm trying to see what kind of things I can do with silver solder as a medium for drawing as well as sculpture, so i'm drawing relief images inspired by fossils half visible out of stone matrices. I don't really like this one but it's a start.







On a side note, I was expecting moth eggs in the mail today but got a wasp nest instead. I'm definitely expecting the eggs tomorrow so I'll probably post images of that project soon as well as some new images of nests.