Working with some more color!
Coyote Color Study
Tag: animals
Condor iPhone Cover
The California Condor represents a success story in animal conservation, and I wanted to honor this majestic bird with a sketch. Now my Condor sketch is available on a cell phone cover for the iPhone 5, iPhone 6, and iPhone 7. This high-quality transparent cover let’s you still see the attractive shape of the iPhone, and the image is printed on with a durable process to last you a long time. Now when you take pictures you can say “look at the birdie” and mean it!
10% of the purchase price of the product always goes to NRDC, a non-profit that works to protect animals and open spaces, and combat climate change.
Framed Jackrabbit Original and Prints Available For Sale
In the fall of 2016, I started pastel drawings of my most popular jewelry pieces. It had been a while since producing any drawings; I’d spent most of my time in the past few years working on my hand painted jewelry. I realized I do really love drawing, and I love working with pastels!
This is a picture of my kitchen with the original Jackrabbit drawing. The original is for sale (contact me if you’re interested) and I also have framed prints available for sale. The original drawing is 14×11 inches in a 21×17 inch frame.
Color Study: Big Horn Sheep
Working on some more color ideas. Big horn sheep are incredibly shy, but I’m proud to say I saw one on a hike in Joshua Tree about 10 years ago. We saw 3 of them, and they were quite far away, but it was amazing!
Humpback Whale: more color work today
Experimenting with more color today!
Bobcat: sketching today
I’m working with some color today!
Today is Endangered Species Day!
Today is Endangered Species Day, a day to bring awareness of the many vulnerable creatures around the world who are losing their habitats due to human actions. More and more species are being affected by our actions: acidifying oceans, melting sea ice, forest logging and warming temperatures, and extreme weather. 
Today however I’d like to highlight a success story: the California Condor. I wrote a blog post about a month ago; I sketched the condor because I wanted to bring awareness to this bird, and because I think the shape of the head contrasting with it’s black plumage is very dramatic and beautiful. Now in celebration of Endangered Species day, I’m offering this sketch for sale as a print. It’s available framed and unframed. Remember 10% of the purchase price always goes to NRDC to help endangered animals, wild places, and combat climate change.
For more information and ways to help endangered animals, here are some links.
http://www.endangered.org/action/
https://www.nrdc.org/get-involved
Cute Friday
In honor of condors, today’s Cute Friday post is a baby condor chick!
Original photograph from this great article about condor chicks being raised in captivity!
Send a Special Note to Mom and help Monarch Butterflies!
Mother’s Day is this Sunday; you can send your favorite mom a special note, and NRDC will plant a milkweed plant for each note you send. Milkweed is essential to Monarch butterfly larvae: the larvae eat milkweed, and due to less milkweed available, some populations of monarchs are in decline. This Mother’s Day, NRDC and Monarch Watch are joining forces to plant more milkweed for monarchs. Visit this site, and simply enter the email address of your favorite mom or mother figure and she’ll receive a special email. For each email sent NRDC and Monarch Watch will plant one milkweed plant!
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms and caretakers out there. Nothing happens without you!
Visit to Marine Mammal Center
On Sunday we went up to the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco. It was a warm and sunny day, which in my experience of the Marin Headlands, is rare. Here is our view looking back at San Francisco.
We wanted to see the seals at the Mammal Center; it’s pupping season, so all the baby seals that get separated from their moms end up there. We were also told that if there are storms, which we’ve had a lot this winter, the likelihood of separation is higher, so it’s a busy time for the center.
These are the baby elephant seals. In the center right now, over half the patients are baby elephant seals. When the seals are separated from mom too early, they don’t yet know how to get food and come into the center severely malnourished. The center rehabilitates the seals, and when they are healthy again, releases them into the wild. Elephant seals were nearly hunted to extinction; after whale numbers dropped drastically in the early 1900’s, hunters then turned to elephant seals for the blubber to make lamp oil. It’s estimated numbers were down to 100 animals living off the coast of Guadalupe Island in Mexico. Numbers now on the west coast are at 150,000.
Volunteers at the center told us that baby elephant seal vocalizations are the sounds of the orcs in Lord of the Rings, and the sounds of the dragons in How to Train your Dragon. Their barks are a combination of a sharp bark and a sort of eerie whine. They are also very loud!
The center has an adopt a seal program, in which you can (symbolically) adopt a baby seal. Some of the seals eat up to 1,000 pounds of fish per day!
We took a small hike down to the beach and on the way found a whale skeleton. The bones were laid out in the size and shape of the whale.
Here is a closeup of the baleen at the head.
Marin Headlands are a beautiful place to hike and I loved seeing the baby seals, so if you ever get a chance, definitely a great place to visit!
Andrea Vickery 