Friday, January 10, 2014

Fieldwork Friday: Mesohippus. Because it's the Year of the Horse and this is as close as I'll get.


Enough with the seabirds, already. Let's look at something different for a bit. I know! How about ancient horse skeletons from somewhere in my sketchbooks? The Chinese new year, the Year of the Horse, begins at the end of January, after all.

Mesohippus barbouri, or "middle horse" turned up in North America around 32 mya, and boy, was it cute! At least I imagine it was cute. Larger than Eohippus, smaller than many dogs I know. (About 60cm tall, according to Wikipedia, which seems about right for the specimen I looked at.) According to my (almost legible) notes, this particular fossil came out of the White River formation in Nebraska. Cool.

I confess I've never tried to draw contemporary horses. I find them a wee bit intimidating. Something about trying to cram something so large onto a small sheet of paper that just doesn't work for me. But I could draw this horse nearly life size and at least get his head on the page. Or I could have done had I planned my page layout a little better. Cute, Sherrie. Real cute. Just like Mesohippus.

6 comments:

  1. Looks like a large bird skull! Maybe you could practice drawing these little guys! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falabella

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  2. would love to see you draw a contemporary horse, you could start small and drw a mini or pony :)

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  3. Oddly enough, there's a tiny "shrunken" pony out back of my studio. I feel bad for it, though... it's just in a side yard of dirt... no grass or anything nice. But you never know... once I get over this seabird exhibition I might be ready for fur instead of feathers.

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  4. depending on the laws where you live, it needs shelter so should have that at least. because laws on keeping horses vary so much depending on the place, there is nothing wrong with having the pony on dirt as long as he isnt standing in his own mess all of the time and his feet are looked after.

    if by shrunken you mean you can see his ribs, thats bad, ponies have a habit of over eating so tend to look over weight not shrunken, he needs to be reported to someone.

    *end little rant* :p

    a few linos of furry animals from you would be great :)

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  5. Hey, Jen - By "shrunken" I just meant that it's a tiny little thing, not that it's undernourished. But I'm still not completely comfortable with its living conditions, so will need to find out who to check in with about it.

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  6. ah ok :) thats a good idea to see who who need to talk to

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Linocut in Progress: The Third Act

Time to wrap up this linocut ! And we are wrapping at warp speed (see what I did there?)... because there are deadlines. Exhibition deadline...