nixanimalia-blog
The Animal Artwork of E.E. Nix plus some random animal things. Because animals.
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Latest Posts by nixanimalia-blog
Throwback Scientific Illustration
This was a super fun, 3 month project for my Sci Ill program at UW. We took a picture of a horse, then drew it 3 times after much anatomical study: skeleton , muscle, skin. Then it was compiled and blended together.
We then put together our illustrations into an informational poster. I love teaching science with art! The UW program was very worth it!
May Reminder...
I'll be posting a reminder weekly through May just in case anyone follows me half way through. :) As a reminder, there is one month left to buy anything off my store at Etsy before I close it down for moving.
Enjoying the spring in the PNW. I even saw baby bunnies!
What nature have you most enjoyed seeing this spring? Bugs? Birds? Flowers?
Snow Geese
This was my very first art I did for environmental and conservation statements and education. It was really fun to try a half-color and half-black-and-white piece. It was done with carbon dust and colored pencil. Read the full story on my Patreon!
I now have merch!
In case you missed it, you can view all the behind the scenes of my art, inspirations, process, and struggles over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/NixAnimalia
Also my etsy shop will close end of May due to going through a move, so get any cards and prints while you can:
Neat!!!
🌿 Who is the Central American Tigrina? This tiny wild cat (Leopardus tigrinus centralis) might be a subspecies… or a full species of its own. Some studies even link it closer to ocelots than to its supposed cousins. Mysterious, elusive, and stunningly spotted, it prowls the forests of Central America — quietly vanishing before we’ve even figured out exactly who it is. 🐾✨
I'M BACK!
I've been gone for *checks calendar*...uhhh an embarrassing 8 and a half years. Yowzer.
I've had a few changes. I got a Scientific Illustration Certification from the University of Washington. I had two kids, who are both now finally school age. I found my passion is nature conservation and education. I will be taking my art in that direction and maybe pursue employment in that field. For now, I'm loving the art business, being around for my kids, and...oh yeah...about to move! It's been busy.
However, I am back here for hopefully good! I plan to update weekly with art. It will be a new piece every month, if not twice a month. The other weeks will be filled with art you haven't seen yet that I did over the last 8 years. There, sadly, was not much art done a few years in there where I was 3D printing humans and changing diapers. But you can't stop the art. I shall rise and continue...
So let's start off with a Morpho Butterfly! I was lucky to see them at a local butterfly habitat. They are unremarkable brown and then flash a brilliant blue in flight. Truly amazing. I did this artwork digitally. It would be fun to redo it sometime with pastels or paints.
Want a free print of my watercolor art?
I feel it is very important to exercise our right to vote. I am not going to make any statement on who you should vote for, but if you vote, I will give you a print for FREE of my watercolor animals. What do you need to do?
1. Vote
2. Take a picture or update your social media or whatever with your "I Voted!" sticker OR hold the ballot stub, hold a sign, whatever you need to do. :) Just something to show you voted.
3. PM or email (NixAnimalia@gmail.com) your photo or link me to your social media update along with your 1 choice of print and your mailing address. (I will delete your photo and not use it for anything outside of proof you voted). Please pick only from these pictures on this post.
4. Get your print in the mail!
Feel free to share this. If I give free prints out to the entire nation because everyone voted, that will make me a very happy person. :)
Fus Ro Draw!
This next project I am quite giddy about. The goal was to make many sketches with a black pen. Then I would photocopy my images and change their size or invert the colors to make a black and white collage.
I was thinking what would be really good as black and white. Then my mind wandered to Skyrim, as is usual, and how there are white and black dragons that kind of fall on different sides of the battle. Or so I’m told. Truthfully I started the game and played several hours of actual storyline until they release the Hearthfire DLC. Now I find ways to get money to make my house better. I also travelled town to town finding eligible bachelors wearing the Amulet of Mara. Then I realized that dudes never looked twice at me, but all these women kept throwing themselves at me. But who was the heroine who secretly had a crush on me, but would follow me all across the country bearing my burdens? So I married Lydia. Who wouldn’t want such a faithful parter? <3 After our beautiful wedding, she suddenly departed on foot. -_- I had to command line to catch up with her, and modded the game so I could give her a companion horse. Who says I don’t look out for my wife. <3
Aren’t we just the cutest couple? Aside from my character’s heavily scarred and tattooed face...
OH RIGHT....ARTWORK. THAT’S WHAT WE WERE HERE FOR.
I started by copying down the dragon alphabet. Here it is “A” through “Rawr” ;)
Here are some dragon shouts I copied down as well. There are quite a few, so I only chose some. The very bottom one (bottom right) is Fus Ro Dah!
Here is a reference photo from in game that I decided to use. This is Paarthurnax. He is a dragon that betrayed and helped defeat Alduin the first time. He teaches you shouts too.
Pencil map and measure
Now time to draw it for realsies in pen.
Paarthurax had other aspirations.
Here is a reference photo for Alduin. He’s a black dragon, but to make this easier on myself, I inverted the colors on the image. Now I can draw him as a white dragon in pen and inverse the colors later.
Like so.
Here’s a couple other tiny dragons.
Now to put it all together. After many hours of shrinking the dragon alphabet and then repeating it over and over again, we get a kind of cool “greyish” background. I used this for the sky. Then the larger print was to outline clouds.
Like this. then you invert the tiny dragons, so they are black and menacing after being risen from the dead by Alduin.
The dragon text that was shouts - I inverted the colors so that was all black with white text.
This I used as the ground and rock that Paarthurax could guard.
Here is the black colored version of Alduin. :)
And the full version of Paarthurax guarding the shouts.
And all together. I used Copic markers in various shades of grey to give it some atmospheric perspective.
Ugly Duckling Turns Into A Mediocre Swan
I don’t like this piece so much, but I wanted to share because I really like the concept and I’ve seen it used in amazing ways.
The idea is to take black and white paper, and cut and arrange it in any order. Then you draw black and white feathers on it. A white feather on the black paper is drawn in white chalk. A black feather on the black paper is outlined in white chalk. A black feather on the white paper is drawn in charcoal, but the white feather on the white paper is outlined in black charcoal. It gives a really cool image of feathers falling and crossing the borders between white and black.
I imagined having a white paper swan on a black background. The feathers would be falling down and on the middle of the swan a lone feather touches “water,” leaving water ripples. Neat, right? It would have been if I had actually pulled it off. Not sure what went wrong, but the feathers seem force-placed and not at all floating or falling down. Also I re-did the water ripples a bunch of times and they still don’t look as realistic as I wanted. Moar practice!
The Bird is the Word
Another thing I wanted to have in my portfolio is an acrylic piece. My teacher recommended that I try copying Audubon. I picked his Black-capped chickadees. I really like the red berries that offset the black and white birds.
So the thing is...I haven’t painted acrylic before this piece. Well, that’s only half true. I wasn’t too worried because I do lots of miniature painting and that uses acrylic paint. Sorry, I’m not into WarmaHordes too much (though I have a battle box. Go Circle!). I actually have a plethora of LotR miniatures. Because Mumakil. Because Felbeasts. Because Riders of Rohan and their HORSIES. :D To sum up, I painted all the animals, and none of the dudes are painted. lolz.
So I have practice using acrylic, I just never put it on a flat piece before. So here it goes!
That ever crucial step of mapping and measuring.
One of the biggest challenges I had on this was learning how to mix colors. See with miniature painting, you buy all the shades of red you need (or you can at least). So you can have Gore Red, Horde Red, Blood of My Enemies Red, The Color Your Face Turns When You Get Beaten Really Bad At Lock&Load Red, etc. I needed what I would consider “Cranberry.” My best guess would be red with a touch of blue in it. That gave me a black-maroon. Or I guess “Prune” or “Black Current” ;) The shade was actually closer to “What The Crap Am I Doing” Red. then I found that I really did have the mixture right - but then I added white and a beautiful shade of Cranberry appeared! It WAS super effective!
Aren’t they just the most beautiful shade of berry you ever did see?
There’s quite a gap in picture stages here. I blame Netflix. Probably Buffy. Suffice it to say I discovered chickadees are not “white and black birds” but rather shades of brown and grey and yellow and white and black. Also teeny tiny brushes are my friend for line work. (Thank you miniature painting!) Not the most beautiful of lines. More practice always!
Adding more “not super straight” lines. The more you add, the better they look!
Chickadees, in fact, have pale yellow chins.
This is a closeup on one part of the painting. I’m showing that I don’t like how light and dark it is. I’m about to see what happens when I dry brush pale yellow or white over the top.
Success! (at least to my eyes)
Can’t have Black-capped Chickadees without black caps.
Green leaves turned out better than I had hoped. Sadly everything looks better from far away and not so close, but I’m sure practice will help with that. I also did a lot of detail touch up. I highlighted the feathers in white and added black flecks. Lots of tiny lines that were straitened with tiny lines in other colors.
Yay! I pushed my comfort zone and it turned out ok!
Still life...so still...so sad
I did a still life with a starfish and water bucket that I’m pretty excited about.
However I’m an animal artist...and I like still life...but they don’t exactly go together if you take my meaning.
On that happy note, here is my artwork. I took a large piece of watercolor paper, mixed some blue acrylic paint with water and covered the whole paper to make it blue. Then I treated the blue as the medium tone (kind of like grey). Then I used charcoal to put in the darker-than-blue colors and white chalk added a lighter-than-blue highlights. I call it “Moisturize Me” also in reference to one of the few Dr. Who episodes I’ve seen.
YakitisSacked
This was another entry into my portfolio to help me get into school (which I did! Yay again!) I took this picture at a zoo. I sadly can’t remember which one - either San Diego or Phoenix I think...
I loved all the different textures of hair this yak had. He was also pretty cute sleeping away in the sunshine. I don’t think I captured the hair texture as well as I would have liked. Practice! Practice! Practice!
Ready...set...DRAW!
“Map and Measure” which is fancy art speak for “this part looks like crap but is necessary before I can get all the details on.”
I start with the nose. Not for any strategic artistic reason. But because animals have THE CUTEST NOSES ON THE FACE OF THIS PLANET.
The head has a body. A yak has a shape. A girl has a name.
All done! The white hairs against the black hairs is done with a battery operated eraser. Seriously - this eraser rotates very fast and you can make really white lines with it. :D
Sumi Ink
I loooooove sumi ink drawings. I love the simplistic style the oriental paintings have. Then I thought - simple must be easy to do, right? Oh honey.
After taking a workshop I learned quickly it is not easy. Of course it takes people years to master it. This picture is one of my latest after a workshop, a class, and a few practices. It still could be loads better, but finally getting happy with the results instead of “let’s speak of this to no one” status.
The goal of this piece was to dilute the ink to give it atmospheric shading.
Appropriate Appropriation
For class this quarter, my teacher wanted me to do “Appropriation Self-Portrait.” That is where I take a famous painting and put myself in there as the subject matter. It draws on the reaction you have of the original art, but changing it adds a new layer. I took "The Happy Lovers" by Jean-Honoré Fragonard and changed it to "The Happy Lovers of 2016". ;) To be fair, this has been a few date nights of late. :P
“The Happy Lovers” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
“The Happy Lovers of 2016″ pencil by E.E.Nix ;) I darkened it a bit digitally to show the comparison better.
Here it is as the original
And 3 pictures of close up detail
Pencil and Watercolor
I found out that an art style you can do is drawing a pencil drawing...and then use watercolor to give it a splash of color. How fun! :D It is pretty neat. I’m not as practiced with watercolor as I am with colored pencil, but the color does go on faster. I made these for my co-workers as I left my mouse handling job to do art instead.
I gave this one to my vet friends who taught me SO MUCH. I got to trim little mouse toes when they got itchy skin to keep them from scratching it. I also learned how to trim mouse teeth!! Mouse teeth grow constantly and if they have malocclusion (where their teeth don’t line up right), they can grow out of control and be deadly to the mice. So we trim the bad ones to keep them healthy and happy. :) I also learned how to put ointment and eyedrops in their eyes. Basically what vets to with other animals...only on a teeny tiny scale. Between the mouse’s legs in the picture is the BASE OF THE TAIL. >.>
This was for my supervisor. He loooooved skulls. I thought having a scene out of “Hamlet” I mean “Hamouse” would be good. ;) ‘Alas poor Yorick, I ate him well.’ To a mouse, your buddy’s death is an excellent source of protein sometimes. Because mouse. We don’t talk about that side of their behavior. Instead, did I tell you mice have cute widdle noses? Cause they do!
This was for my project coordinator. She was so sweet, she was basically the mom to all of us. She is all about love, friendship, and positive thinking. :) The world definitely needs more people like her!
This was for a couple of people I worked with and we got pretty close. When I gave this to them, one said “Ha! We got the CUTE one of baby mice. Not the ugly ones with needles and skulls.” ;D They made me laugh so much! I will miss them all!
Social Media
I love social media. I want to have a presence in many. Below is my plan, but I’ve already noticed it changing a bit. For example, Instagram is becoming random pictures about art and flowers :P and ...I still have trouble with Twitter.
Still, I am on all of these and I try to keep everything varied a bit, so you don't see the exact same thing each time:
Facebook and Google Plus - You will see my finished work with some step by step photos and brief descriptions
Twitter - Random happenings an animal artist might encounter
Instagram - Finished pieces with pretty filters. Also animal (flower) inspiration pics.
Tumblr - In depth description with step by step pictures of the whole process. The best social media...amirite?
Lions and Portfolios
I was trying to get into school for Scientific Illustration (which I did! Yay!), but at the time I needed to build up my portfolio. My art teacher recommended that I draw something super eye catching. After spending quite awhile finding something that would look good in black and white, I found this. It was an incredible photo taken by National Geographic. Sadly the antelope did not make it. But if you look at this picture and imagine...it did. ;)
I never like the beginning of my drawings. I think they always look like crap. I’m a “finished art” person. Unless someone does a simplistic drawing - I love those. That takes a very special other set of skills to pull off.
I ended up flicking some white paint at it to give some water droplets. I also had fun jabbing my pencil at this a bunch for the black dots. The original image was of a lion and an antelope chance meeting at a watering hole. Mud, dirt, water flying...IT WAS A FIREFIGHT!
Haha this face. This is the face of an antelope who tells the god of death “not today.”
Enough introductions, let’s do this!
Let's start this off with a photo completion picture. I didn't get any pictures of the process. But basically I cut a picture in half and with pencil drew the part I had removed.
I had wanted to draw the rest of the otter (it’s back legs and tail) to look like it was 3D and coming off the page and leaving water marks on the page. However I ran out of time, and I didn’t feel my skills were quite up to that level. Still, can’t get better if you don’t try, right?
Also in the real picture half that I cut, the otter had a yellow stain on his mouth making him look all frowny when converted to black and white. So I drew in a bit more of a smile. Because artist.
Introductions
It would be remiss of me to not include introductions of my four-legged co-workers, as they will feature heavily I’m sure. :)
The newest (and smelliest) additions to the menagerie are the 4 female mice. The black one is “Kimmy” named for random reasons. The brown one with the torn ear is “Queen Bee.” She is a sweetheart and an older lady. I adopted her off someone who had given her the name and already a wonderful home, but was happy to have Queen Bee join the other girls. The “fancy mouse” grey one is named Riza from the anime: Full Metal Alchemist. Following that naming scheme is the white one “Winry.” :)
Next we have the gerbil brothers. The greyish one is Alphonse and the “blond” one (haha) is Edward. Yup, still with the FMA theme.
This is Puddleglum. She is a common house gecko. When I got her I knew nothing about the care and keeping of geckos. I only know she was supposed to live 5+ years. She just celebrated her 11th birthday with some tasty crickets this spring. I’m pretty convinced she’s an animagus. “CURIOUSLY LONG LIFE FOR A COMMON GARDEN RAT” Siriusly.
For the main players, we have our two kitties. The black fluffy one who is totally just big boned and fluffy and is not a tubby whatsoever is Missy. ;) The photogenic orange tabby who thinks everything is boring and needs to make his own fun is Scratch Fury: Destroyer of Worlds. We just refer to him as “Scratch.” Usually loudly and in a manner only exasperated cat owners can muster. We picked his name from the online comic PvP by Scott Kurtz. Good stuff you should check out. I love these cats to itty bitty pieces and I have learned SO MUCH about cat behavior that I will be sharing liberally here.
The last, but not forgotten, player is Patriot. She won’t be featured here for awhile as she lives in another state. I hope to change that soon. Turns out boarding horses locally costs much more dollars than where she currently lives. Alas. She is a registered quarter horse and has lived up to her breed title. Growing to only the quarter size of a real horse. lolz. She reaches just at or barely over pony height (14.2 hands). What’s that in real measurements? It’s a comfortable height to fall from. Her registered name is “Wind In My Sails” as her damn fine dam was named “Scirocco” and her studly sire was/is? named “Sailor Sam Silver.” Very piratey. What I yell across the pasture to get her attention and whisper sweet nothings in her fuzzy ear is “Patriot.” This is also known as a barn name. I picked apparently from American Girl: Felicity story. Because of course I did.
Thanks for making it this far! (even if you just skimmed by looking at the pretty pictures of animals).
Fur, Paint, and Magic
Greetings! I am an animal scientist. Well, ok, I’m an artist. Actually...
I wanted to be a magizoologist, but that only exits in the Harry Potter world, apparently. How rude. So then I wanted to be a cryptozoologist. Unfortunately, the U.S. branch went bankrupt when I was in college. Alas. I decided observing animals is ultimately my passion, and agreed that they should probably be animals that are regularly viewable in order to observe them. I then pursued bachelor degrees in Animal Science and Biology. I went on to get my Master’s Degree in Animal Science with every intention of going into Animal Behavior.
That was when I heard the sweet call of art. I had flirted with art as a fun hobby, but never thought of pursuing it professionally. Obviously I was pursuing animal science things. Like mixing sheep poop in acid and other experiments. There was no time for whimsical things involving pencils and paint! How wrong I was. Turns out art involves observing animals, drawing their widdle fuzzy noses, drawing all sorts of magical creatures, or there is even this thing called Scientific Illustration!!! :D Right?!
So, welcome to my Tumblr where there will be art. There will be pictures. There will be facts and stories. There may also be tears and smiles. But there will definitely be fuzzy noses.
NOM WIRE