This was part of the harbour in Collingwood. Ooooh. Ahhhh.

Aaaaand then I found this place called the Osprey Wetlands, just south of Collingwood… Lemme see if I can explain. I THINK it’s a little wildlife reserve kind of area, and I know you can hike and stuff through it, but I couldn’t really find an entrance. At least not in the traditional sense. I found a few access roads that I’d be weary to take a pickup truck down, let alone the small Toyota I was driving. Anyhow, the place is PACKED with wildlife and is RIDICULOUSLY beautiful. Really glad I stopped there. Yes, I did manage to pull over for a good SKETCHING.

But my sketch really didn’t do it justice or turn out that great, so I redone it, I did! Yeah! Why not check them both out…

This is what I did while I was there...

Much much much much much much closer to what I really saw. Hahaha, big difference.

Pretty cool. Collingwood is a really nice place, too. I had a killer coffee that some kid made for me. Alright.

If you happen to find yourself in the city of Collingwood between September 1st and 26th, you can see my Dracula prints at the Collingwood Public Library! How about that? The Exhibition is called, Read Me Like A Book, and coincides with a book festival the city is holding, Wordstock.

Since most of this stuff isn’t a full on novel, I thought it’d be a lot of fun to try making cover illustrations for them instead of illustrations to fit in with the text (like I’ve been doing with Dracula). So far I like it a lot cause you can sum up the story in one image. Ah-HA! But there’s a catch!! You gotta make sure you don’t give too much away! Maybe TEASE the audience… make them WANT to read it…

Anyhow, here’s how the process went…

Background colour.

Add the red.

Now the black!

Three colours and you’re done? HA! This is the first time I’ve ever done a three-colour print. It could use a little tweaking here and there, but I think it turned out pretty great. Take a look!

Cardboard? HA!

And last I gave it a shot on cardboard. I don’t know what it is, but I love printing on cardboard. Oh baby. But I can only do it when I get to the end of a pad of paper. Ooohh, there’s always a catch.

It turns out that 90lb computer paper is AWESOME for block printing!

Oooooooh, it’s a Mosasur! If you haven’t been listening, I kinda love these horrible, terrifying monsters. Being of course a marine reptile RATHER than a Dinosaur, they were coolest thing on the block riiiight before everything died. You know, 65 million years ago or what-have-you.

Anyhow, I thought I’d try something a little different. All my other dino block prints are just the bones, so this time I thought I’d try an outline of what the old boy might look like (strictly hearsay of course) and then carve out the part that we know for sure, the bones. Turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. I was a little worried about the details. But then again I made this with the intention of putting it on a t-shirt, so we’ll see how that goes.

The next two are on construction paper. Just remember, if you ever grow up to be an artist, construction paper, white glue, and the like are just as useful now as they were when you were in kindergarten. And brush your teeth, don’t forget about that, either.

If it wasn't for the fact that construction paper will fade to gray after 10 minutes of light exposure, it would be pretty sweet, too.

I messed around a bit with the orientation of it, and I think the yellow one was a lot closer. But this a BIG lino block. This sucker barely fits on an 8 1/2 x 11. Construction paper is bigger than that though. Yessss.

So since the last time I mentioned the Mosasaur on here, I’ve learned something EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS about it, and you can see it pretty well in this print (the black one more than the others). The Mosasaur actually had a second jaw on the roof of it’s mouth that moved INDEPENDENTLY from the top and bottom rows of teeth. It was smaller and more set back towards the throat than the other sets of teeath and it’s purpose was to clamp down on prey and hold it in place as it opened it’s mouth wider to swallow it’s prey. Soooo, what it comes down to is, if the Mosasaur bites you once, just once, you’re through. You’re eaten. You have no hope of getting away because it has an extra freaking jaw, full of backward facing teeth that hold you down (slippery little fish that you are) while it gets a better grip with it’s BIGGER teeth.

Oh, wow.

WEIRD SIDENOTE: I was just listening to my favourite Cryptozoology podcast, THE CRYPTID FACTOR (If you’ve never listened to it, you really should… the episodes are posted here. One episode is pretty good. Two is charming. Three and you’re a loyal, loyal fan. Just keeps getting funnier), and they were talking about a new theory that the Mosasaur STILL EXISTS off the coast of New Zealand. Uhhhhh… Kinda weird since it’s pretty much my favourite dino-type fellow, but also my absolute LAST choice for something I’d want to exist at the same time as. My own personal skepticism in this case being that if man was EVER able to successfully cross a body of water, it was because there weren’t any Mosasaurs around to eat them. Apparently there’s a chance that this is a much smaller off-shoot of it’s massive ancestors and is possibly warm blooded, which does make it much more likely to have survived all this time (warm blood being the reason early whales were able to escape from their greatest predators into colder, arctic waters and therefore survive until today).

I’m gonna look into this.

Let’s see, it’s from the Toronto Zoo, straight out of my sketchbook, and includes decoded flamingo speak.

Fun for the kids: try and find the duck.

Coming up? I have a tribute to the Queen of England. Go ahead and look forward to THAT.

I was doing a painting of a couple souvenirs I bought at the Nature Museum (yes, I’m still talking about it), and I was about to go make some coffee or something when I realised what I had sitting on my desk.

The painting is pretty unfinished at the time of the photo, but REST ASSURED I finished the heck out of it a little while later.

At least it’s not a painting of a painting. Those really confuse me sometimes when I’m doing other stuff.

Now the FOSSIL in the painting is of Knightia Eocaena, a quite common specimen from the Green River Formation in Kemmerer, Wyoming. Why is this so cool?? Well, for starters it’s a fossil, but if for some reason that isn’t enough, the Green River Formation is one of the most unique fossil sites in the world. It was essentially an entire ecosystem that was fossilized, and therefore one of the most complete pictures of an extinct ecosystem we have. Everything from insects to plant life (quite rare otherwise) to these little fish were all preserved. And apparently since it’s such a rich site, there’s a profusion of these fossils, which I guess is why I was able to purchase one for $20. Quite a steal, if you ask me.

And it doesn’t stop there! I JUST realised after reading about the fish fossil that the ROM has a small section specifically dedicated to the Green River (”realised” meaning Jessica pointed it out to me). So the next time I’m there, you can bet I’m gonna draw the crap out of it. Learning? Don’t mind if I do.

FEATHERS!!!

Ok, so he wasn’t in the bird section specifically, but that’s not his fault. Oh WOW, I was excited when I found out they had Dinosaur models with SKIN. And then I found the ones with FEATHERS! So cool. Dinosaur models with flesh attached are pretty rare from what I’ve seen, and nothing is cooler than a feathered dinosaur.

Anyhow, this little guy is obviously a theropod dinosaur. But specifically which one, I don’t actually know. Now, I’ve been kicking myself for not labeling a lot of the drawings of birds that I did, which is my own stupid fault, but this guy just plain wasn’t labeled (or at least not that I saw). I’d guess Deinonychus, EXCEPT for that fact that other Deinonychus models I’ve seen were much larger, so I really donno.

BUT that brings up an interesting point; the labeling system at the Nature museum wasn’t that great. In a few different sections there was the odd thing, like this dino, that wasn’t labeled. But what they were really good for was providing extra information about what you were looking at (some of the labeling came from the information panels, but wasn’t specifically lined up with the exhibit… which is fine if it makes you THINK about what you’re looking at, which was certainly a strength of the museum, but why were some things completely unlabeled?). And this is also where the ROM falls pretty woefully short. The ROM is extensively labeled, but specific information on the specimens is far too scarce. Mostly very general and very brief background is displayed there.

For the most part, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I love these places, I just thought that was a fascinating parallel. But it just goes to show that no one’s perfect… and neither am I, so I better go do some more drawings.

See you next week!

Anyhow, gotta start somewhere… My girlfriend, Jessica and I just discovered this CRAAAZY museum in Ottawa, THE CANADIAN MUSEUM OF NATURE! Wow. Wow wow wow. I honestly can’t stress enough how cool this place is. Sorry to say it, but it puts the ROM to shame. Terrible shame. Except maybe in the prehistoric department, in that case the ROM wins and as far as I’ve seen is second only to The Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, which is badass like NO ONE’S business. But back to the museum at hand…

The Nature Museum? I love it. I recommend it (especially if you’re a museum-drawing-kind-of-weirdo, like me, then I know you’d love it). As sad as it is though, nothing has gotten me THAT excited about drawing in a long time… possibly since 2007, when I was in Italy.

So at the Museum I LEARNED that I weigh the equivalent of:

5 Wild Turkeys, or…

42 Ducks, or…

633 Blue Jays, or…

18 623 Red-Throated Hummingbirds.

Which is fascinating if you compare me to each of them… because really, 5 wild turkeys could pretty easily kill me. You know, in a battle royal, Godzilla vs King Kong kind of a deal. 5 of those things, pecking, clawing and flapping? No more Corey.

Also it’s pretty clear that 42 ducks could kill me, too. 5? No chance. 15? I might make it out with both eyes. But 42? I lose.

And 633 blue jays?? They could just wear-me-out-to-death from having to fight off 633 crazed blue jays, one by one. Phew.

And come on, 18 623 hummingbirds? Can you even imagine that headed for you? I could, and it would be TERRIBLE. There is no question in my mind that they could kill me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be morbid, or even funny for that matter… I’m just saying that pound for pound, birds are cooler than me.

Here’s some sketches!

I laughed out loud after I drew that kingfisher... look at his head!

A Blue Jay and Stellar's Jay. Jays are so cool!! Look at them! HA!

This was an awesome setup... it's 3 different species of Candian bird of prey, male and female. Hmm? COOL!

This was a lot of fun cause I rounded it out at the ROM the other day because they just happen to have a Great Blue Heron skeleton!

There’s also a Great Blue Heron that lives in Waterloo Park. This should help the next time I try to draw him from afar. MORE NEXT WEEK!!

How about that?

Ahem, so! I went and framed up a couple of paintings to enter into a juried exhibition, and maaaaaan, I’m gonna show them to you. I won’t actually know if I’m in the show until this Thursday, so keep your fingers thoroughly crossed for me.

This painting you may recognize from the main site, it’s from about a year ago.

Badass frame? Actually it knda sucks. Really sucks. Let's just hope it'll stay on the wall once it goes up. Fingers? Cross 'em.

NOW THE NEXT ONE, is my very latest portrait, and yes, you’re hearing a drumroll… I JUST finished it on the 10th. Soon to be appearing in the People section, a portrait of my old pal, Dan.

I'm pretty excited about this one.