DrawWithMike.net

I was going to call this, 'What's your favourite dead thing'... but that is far too limiting! If you have read my post on red chalk drawing, Laurene, Mike and I started chatting about our eclectic collections of things:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=99

Laurene has a variety of fossiles, Mike has skeletons and a variety of bits and pieces including an ancient bit of oak from a sailing ship! I have skulls, shells, sea urchins, amonites, rocks/crystals, feathers, seed pods, old spoons, a bit of the seat from Apollo 13, metal things like cogs and wheels from old watches, keys, and other steam punky type metal bits... to name just a few!

I think all artists collect things - but I suspect people who draw especially so and are always on the look out for interesting, detailed things to creat art of.

I think my current favourite thing is the cast body of a Double Drummer cicada a good friend and artist gave me a year or so back. The Double Drummer is the largest cicada in Australia and is reputedly the LOUDEST insect in the world! When you stand under a tree when they are in chorus you cannot hear yourself think and the sound make your ears hurt.

Here is a photo of it - it is fully 3inches long! Why not show us a photo of your favourite thing from your collection of stuff? ...oh, and yes, I have drawn this cicada!

Talk about huge!! It's so beautiful! I can't even imagine a tree full of those.

Here's my dinosaur footprint. It's from Connecticut, USA and estimated to be approx 100,000,000 years old, so late Jurassic, early Cretaceous. I circled it in red because it's a little difficult to spot at first. Looks very bird-like, doesn't it? The other small black circles are other tiny fossils - worm-like creatures or plant material, I'm not sure. This is the skull of an Oreodon from South Dakota. It's heavily calcified so we can't see details. It's dated to the Oligocene period so much more recent - maybe 25,000,000 years ago. These were small herbivores with large canines probably closely related to goats or sheep but with heads that were more pig-like. Just look at those canines. Imagine a goat with those teeth! I have some others too. No, I haven't drawn any of them but this is giving me ideas

This won't mean anything to you, Laurene - because I don't know the US or Canadian equivalent - but I have an "O-level" qualification in Geology. My Geography master at school was fascinated by rocks and fossils and I caught the bug from him. So he coached me and one other lad in Geology up to exam level. Unfortunately I don't remember much of it now, but I still have that love of rocks and fossils.

There's something magical about splitting open a rock and finding a fossil. Two things occur simultaneously:

1 - The fossil has just "seen" the light of day for the time in, say, 180 million years
and
2 - I'm the first person in the universe to have seen it.

So, I can easily imagine your delight in having a 100 million-year old dinosaur print that is only a smidge away from actually seeing the animal itself... as in: maybe if you look up it's walking away from you

Sorry! Long day. My imagination is running riot

Absolutely Mike!

There's a huge rock down by the river where I live that was struck by lightning and on the exposed surface you can see small organisms similar to seashells. I always sit next to it when I walk by in summer to see if I can find anything new. People give me a wide berth when I do, so I can sit there as long as I please!!

Oh, and after I saw the original Jurassic park movie, I kept picturing a velociraptor running hopefully away from me.

Just had read your shares, it's amazing what you have home, and I'm jealous
I can't think of anything I have at the moment ...
I used to keep a skull of a dog in childhood,that I found somewhere...
I remember I was so fascinated observing its interesting structure
I'm always getting attracted by everything around me, little things, interesting rocks, branches .., name it , but sadly I have no any collection to share with you...