Attack, extinct beasts of incredible size and power!
For a fun side project, I got to test my imagination in sketching up a contest between two titans of ancient time. In an most wonderful mental exercise known as Mammal March Madness, a bracket-style series of match-ups are made between foes (almost all hail from the mammal lineage). In one category this year, Fossil Mammals, the great Paraceratherium was pitted against the Woolly Rhino. A formidable duel, to be certain. Read all about it (and get an explanation for this dramatic drawing) in my fellow mad mammal mate's post on her website: K.O. & her Charismatic Megafauna!
Attack, extinct beasts of incredible size and power!
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After spending my summer months playing with a fun drawing tablet and software, I am pleased to share the completed series of comics all about ants, known as "Myrmex: A Comic Anthology". I was fortunate enough to contribute to this project, adding my digital stylings and verbosity to two whole comics! I focused on symbiotic relationships between ants and other species:
This project was developed with the goal of creating a series of comics to educate middle school students about ecology, through focusing on ants. There are lots and lots and lots of ants worldwide, and they all do different and awesome things. They make a great lens through which to study science! Take a look at the comic book for yourself; it brought together a handful of scientists and illustrators for some collaboration almost as sweet as extrafloral nectar*! http://bit.ly/199F7We *Read my ant-acacia comic to understand this reference. You may need to follow the link for higher resolution images & text. After grand travels around Southeast Asia, I have returned back to the States, where I intend to focus on cranking out some new art, and some new features on this site! I have gotten a lot of feedback about including photos as a main feature, so once I sort through them all, they will start appearing here for purchase! A few projects are in the wings, so I hope to be in regular contact more that I now have a stable internet connection, and electricity not provided by a generator! As a thank you for reading this, here's one image that I plan to make available as a print just as soon as I can.
Now that I've been in the peatswamp forest for over two months, I feel I am finally getting the hang of the best ways to bushwhack through the understory, plus a good idea of how camp life goes. To celebrate the end of my orientation (and the forthcoming delving in to the real work), I've written a post for OuTrop's Blog, all about life as an Orangutan Intern. You can head over there & check it out for yourself: The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project Blog: New Orangutan Intern!
Hello there! Long time no talk. News has been slim as of late, mostly just due to delays in the process of actually getting into the cool country of Indonesia. But I can now say that I've made it, seen cool things, and have started spinning new project ideas in my mind! Many of which may come to grace the pages of this esteemed site ... though they will take some time to ripen before getting here. However, some ideas in place include a series of field sketches, some species studies while in the field, and quite likely a handful of solid photos to add in to the future print mix.
Feel free to check out Jess' Adventures Abroad for the time being if you're interested in the day to day doings of a natural science enthusiast stuck down in a peat swamp forest. While I'll continue to post all updates to this blog, I also have another site running concurrently that acts as the mainstay for all of my artworks prior and going forward, which includes far-fetched stories to describe each picture's happenstance. Check it out!
http://orangutangled.blogspot.com/ And as an additional gift for you, here is an awesome re-imagining of the timeless classic from Beauty & The Beast, courtesy of my good friend C.House... It is with deepest pride, and greatest pleasure, that we welcome you tonight. And now, we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair, as the dining room proudly presents....Orangutangled. Be! Our! Guest! Be our guest! Put our artwork to the test. Lay your canvas on the desk, Cherie, and we provide the rest. Oil paints, water color, why use one and not the other?! Try the stippling, its just luscious. Don’t believe me? Ask the brushes! They can sculpt! They can draw! It’s all right if you’re in awe, because a painting here is never second best. Go on and fold your easel, take a glance and please you’ll be our guest! Be our guest! Be our guest! -- C. House, 12.06.2011 Come March 2012 [edit: July 2012], I shall embark on a quest to the South Pacific, trekking into the jungles of an Indonesian isle in search of the elusive Pongo pygmaeus, commonly known as the wild orangutan. In all likelihood, this majestic beast shall be readily found, since it has been studied in this particular swath of jungle swamp for the past eight years by the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project. But still a daring adventure it shall be!
Upon arrival at the Setia Alam Base Camp in the Sabangau Forest near Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan (enough big words?), I shall spend most of my waking hours researching the behavioral ecology & population dynamics of our big red cousins. The current plan is to stay for six months before returning home, but who knows if the lure of the verdant jungle shall keep its grasp on me for longer. Some of the gallivanting to be done includes:
I have added many morsels to this lovely little corner of the web of life & knowledge, with lots of new photographia, wordage, and aesthetically pleasing layouts for you to peruse. There are still many more pics to add, some more illustrated stuff in the works, and even that elusive CV ... so stay tuned!
Hopefully zoo sketches & intuitive print ordering will be available by the end of the week as well. Woot! This week the goal is to be able to make prints available for sale, and include a bunch more stuff in my portfolio, including sketches from field trips to the zoo and a handful of some of my favorite wildlife photographs!
Thanks for checking in. This summer I am firing up my website, launching a place where you can see all of my work, some of my photography, and a bunch of prints that will be for sale! Hopefully this Orangutangled mess can get itself off the ground and start to soar!
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AuthorJess M. Stitt is a conservation biologist & scientific illustrator who likes playing in the world wide woods. Wherever she finds herself, she has fun getting to know the wilds through thorough and thoughtful observation. Some sIDE ProjectsPOSts on Other SitesFor OuTrop:
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