Category: Free Inquiry (Page 1 of 2)

This week is back to pencil drawing with some deer! This is not a huge, final animal art project like I may have initially hoped, but it was a good chance to work on my pencil drawing. The top deer image was the first one I drew and I wasn’t very happy with the proportions. The middle deer is my favourite because it reminds me of Bambi.

Can you believe that Bambi came out in 1942? That’s wild. Here is a great scene from the movie:

I decided to do some research on local Victoria deer. The CRD has a great pamphlet about deer in the Victoria area available here. I learned that the only species of deer in our area are blacktail deer. They can double their population over the course of a few years and thrive in the grassy lawns of Oak Bay. When I was travelling this summer I told people our deer were on birth control and everyone thought I was a liar! It’s true, many deer here are on birth control to curb the numbers in their population.

Free inquiry was a great part of my semester, Cheers! Or should I say…. deers.

This week I painted my best friend’s pet Labradoodles. Their names are Bailey and Bella.

I used watered-down acrylics again and I really like how this one turned out. I have learned since last time how to make sure my colours don’t bleed. I painted this for my friend for Christmas so I added some of her favourite flowers. I think I really captured their essence and personalities here. Bailey is the taller, innocent looking one, and Bella is the smaller, more mischievous one.

I decided to consult the same source that I did last time and see what DogTime had to say about Labradoodles. They are a popular dog originally bred in Australia with lots of energy and a gentle temperament. Based on my experience, all this checks out for sure!

If you want to learn some more Labradoodle facts (and see how cute they are), check out the video!

Hello! This week I painted my dog. She is a schnoodle, or a schnauser-poodle, named Echo.

I chose to paint her with watered-down acrylics for more of a watercolour paint look. I pencilled her out first, then painted her using mostly grey-scale, and finally used a black pen to outline and make things pop. I really like how it turned out but I was reminded about the difficulty of watercolors. If you go too dark with water colors, there isn’t much you can do. I made her eyebrows too dark, then went back in to try and fix it with white acrylic paint. The colour of the eyebrows doesn’t fit as nicely with the rest of the piece and just looks off. In the future, I’ll be more careful with the placement of my dark shades.

I read this article on dogtime about schnoodles, and based on my experience it’s pretty accurate! This website is an awesome resource. For every dog breed they have quick facts, pictures, and ratings on different features such as the breed’s exercise needs. It lists common diseases that schnoodles might get, and my dog actually has one of them. This information is very valuable and I will definitely be returning to this website if I want to look into any other dog breeds!

I was a busy bee last week, and by that I mean I was a bee for Halloween and I was busy. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to get into a detailed drawing or painting for my inquiry. I did, however, get crafty with some halloween-related projects.

I carved a pumpkin of a spooky bat. In my undergrad, I did a project on vesper bats which are part of a family of insect-eating microbats. There are over 400 species of just this one family of bats! BC is home to around 15 species of bats. Considering the crazy diversity of bat species, we are lacking in bats. I found a really great resource on local bat species on the Royal BC Museum website. There is a learning pathway available with multimodal educational sections. I would totally introduce this resource to a science class. Below I added one video from the ‘watch’ section of the learning pathway.

The other artsy thing I did was paint a headband for my bee costume. I painted some anatomically incorrect bees with only 2 body segments. Insect bodies are divided into 3 parts in real life, but for the sake of artistic representation, we will let it slide.

In short, my progress this week was lacking, but I did apply animal art to some multimedia pieces (i.e. pumpkins and fashion pieces), so you could say I expanded my artistic horizons.

Alert! It is bee time people! It’s the year of the bee! It actually isn’t the year of the bee but they have been popping up a lot in my life this year.

This painting comes just in time for Halloween! I’m being a bumblebee this year and I’m absolutely buzzing about it. I have most of the components of my costume and just need to bring it all together. As for the painting, I was slightly daunted about painting an insect since I never have before. It was easier to capture than I thought it would be, and I think it turned out okay! What I failed to work on this week was developing a background for my painting. As you can see, the background is a whole lot of green construction paper. There’s always next week!

Bees are pretty amazing creatures. If you want to learn more about them, watch the National Geographic video below. There are over 20,000 species of bees in the world and I’m not quite sure which species I painted. I find it fascinating how different bees in a colony will have different jobs. Some fun bee facts and information on the jobs in the bee colony can be found in the American Bee Journal.

I hope everyone enjoys their Halloween! See you next week.

This week I decided to paint a bird again. I chose the golden-crowned sparrow because it is one of my grandma’s favourite birds. These birds are native to BC and have a yellow patch of feathers on their heads.

My progress in terms of painting went well. I like how the little guy turned out and he didn’t take me very long. When it came to the background, it was a bit of a disaster. I created a green background that just looked plain bad. I decided to scrap the whole thing, cut the bird out and paste it on a different, less ugly background. Maybe if I’m learning anything in this inquiry process, it’s that I need to learn how to paint things that aren’t my focal point.

Here is a great video of a golden-crowned sparrow singing. I found an awesome resource this week called allaboutbirds.org. One fun fact about these birds on their website is that miners in the Yukon thought the sound of the golden-crowned sparrow was depressing. Some miners called it the “no gold here bird”. It’s ironic that gold is in it’s name!

Since golden-crowned sparrows are native to BC, especially the coastal regions, have you ever seen one before?

This week I painted the American Tree Frog! I hosted a paint night at my house with some friends and we really got into some multimedia artwork. First, I painted a frog, then I cut up an Oak Bay Seniors magazine and created a collage. I chose a purple background because I wanted the greens, yellows, and reds of my imagery to pop.

I think my painting went really well this week. I am such a perfectionist that I usually get deep into the granular details, and am scared to take risks that might make a piece look bad. This week, I just went for it. I made a wild-looking collage, gum boots and all, and I really like how it turned out. This took me an hour and a half, and I wasn’t stressed about the final product, I was just enjoying the process. This is huge progress for me as a person/ artist.

American green tree frogs are found in the southeastern United States. According to the website Treehugger, the noise they make with their throat is called a ‘honk’. This action is illustrated in the animation I created below in Canva. Green tree frogs have a specific call that they make after the rain. Their mating is precipitation-dependent, so as you can guess these guys are big fans of the rain. The species may be called the green tree frog, but they have a wide range of colouration including brown.

As included above, amphibians are the most endangered group of vertebrates. This is a bad sign for American green tree frogs. Despite this, some invasive species of amphibians such as the cane toad in Australia and the American Bullfrog in BC can thrive. If you want to experience the craziness that is the cane toad, watch the documentary below:

I hope I have the time to paint again next week because it’s a lot more fun than pencil drawing. That’s all for this week, got to go leap into some other homework!

This week I felt quite stressed and also went on a big 2 day weekend hike. Let’s just say my free time was at a minimum. I set aside 1 hour to do a drawing for my inquiry. As I was deciding which animal to draw I came across an awesome picture of a lion cub. I chose the image because the lion’s head was at an angle and I knew it would be a bit more of a challenge to get the proportions right.

I think it turned out okay. It’s definitely not my proudest moment; it’s a bit wonky but it’s still cute. I realized I need to practice different poses more often and stop choosing perfect, head-on images as my references. Hopefully I can focus more on that next week.

Lion cubs love to play as seen in the video below. Play is hugely important in the development of skills in many animals. Using play, lion cubs can practice their coordination and hunting moves in a safe environment.

I learned 10 facts about lions from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) this week. Some of the most interesting pieces of information were that there is a small subpopulation of lions in India, and that lions have sharp, raspy tongues to scrape meat off of bones. Lion populations have been reduced by 90% in the wild, and they are endanged along with the majority of the world’s big cats.

My personal favorite big cat is the cheetah, not the lion. I’m curious to know what yours is!

Top 10 facts about Lions. (n.d.). WWF. Retrieved October 3, 2023, from https://www.wwf.org.uk/learn/fascinating-facts/lions

This week, I decided it was time to draw some birds. While looking for a cool bird to draw I came across the South Phillippine Dwarf Kingfisher. It was so vibrant and beautiful that it was hard to believe it was real! Here is a video for you to see for yourself:

I painted this week because I really wanted to capture the kingfisher’s colours. I was at a paint night with some friends and it was a lot of fun!

I also created an infographic on Canva if you want a little insight into my artistic process!

The South Phillippine Dwarf Kingfisher is the smallest forest kingfisher in the Philippines. Not much is known about the species, as it is very elusive and was actually photographed for the first time quite recently. If you’re interested an article about the team that photographed it can be found here.

I had a bit of extra time so I also drew a toucan this week. It took me 30 minutes to draw with pencils, but it would have been nice to paint with colour as well.

I used a postcard that I got in Costa Rica this summer as my reference photo. I managed to see 3 Toucans while I was there! According to PBS, toucans are social and can be found travelling in groups of up to 22. That’s a lot of toucans!

My favourite part of this week was painting the kingfisher and getting creative with the background. When I first painted the background, I thought I had ruined the piece. I went back in with the paint marker and things started coming together again. All and all, this week was a success. I think if I continue painting, I can improve pretty fast since this is the first time I’ve painted this year.

Until next time…. got to fly away.

For my EDCI 336 inquiry project, I decided to focus on my creative side. I love doing art, and art was my favourite class in high school. Since I started university, I have felt too busy to put the time in to continue pursuing this hobby. I see this inquiry project as the perfect opportunity to spend some time drawing and painting. 

I want to concentrate on using animals as my subjects. My teachable is biology, and one of the main reasons I am passionate about biology is my love of animals. I see this as an opportunity to draw some animals and learn a bit more about their form. My goal is to find some fun facts about each of the animals or groups of animals I draw too. Some useful resources for animal facts are Brittanica.com and the Smithsonian’s website.

This week I decided to start with foxes. I am a bit rusty when it comes to drawing but I think it went well.

It was a goal of mine to see a fox this May while I was in England and I did it! The fox was scampering through the English countryside in Dorset and I was overjoyed. Foxes are highly communicative members of the Canid family that are usually monogamous. They have adapted well to living in urbanized spaces and their nocturnal, cunning habits help them to be able to coexist in areas with humans. 

Fox | Species, Habitat, Behavior, & Facts | Britannica. (2023, August 8). https://www.britannica.com/animal/fox-mammal