One requirement of the fellows is that we are to post 2 progress posts a month. As of the current blog appearance, August's first post was on its last day. In part because this month's business, and in part from the fact that I posted July 31st's very late at night, I misremembered it as August's post. I hope that this also counts.
Resources are a big part of this project, and one thing that has been nice has been finding said papers and resources. One very interesting one was an excel sheet on which was listed hundreds of women in paleontology, their contact info for questions (if they so chose) and their area of study (from very early life to the remnants of megafauna of the last ice age to ancient plant life, along with dinosaurs and Mesozoic life). I hope that at some point I can reach out to some of these woman to learn further about their work, and as any questions. I reached out to a potential mentor, but haven't heard back, who works in illustration, as well as been reading Mark Witton's blog, which features information on dinosaurs and paleoart. This school year is a historically unique year for the United States and much of the West. We arn't used to disease impacting our society so drastically. And of course schedules have to change. Knowing that, I have written out this next month of my school schedule to see when I will have time to do schoolwork and this project. While I was disappointed to find that some of the times and resources that I had thought would be available during the school day are no longer available (spaces, long stretches of time) I understand that those are neccesary for our health and the prevention of disease. But it will make using the school day more difficult for projects like this. However, sports are cancelled, so I'll have more time after school whereas I had expected to be swamped with sports, perhaps the play, the musical, and more. So if there's one positive about the new situation and the Fellows, is that I'll have structure, access to some of Severn's resources, and time I didn't know if I would have going into this. One of the hardest problems for me during the summer and quarantine was the lack of structure. Without structure, or events, or set plans, I find myself slipping and not doing what I may need to as time flies by. However, the Fellows project provided some structure by forcing me to pursue what I needed, which was what I needed and hoped for in starting it. And, the new school year, as it did in the spring, will help even more. And as the summer has progressed, and as we enter this uncertain territory, my ability to work with variable times has and will improve, and for that I am thankful. But I am nonetheless very appreciative for the blocking school gives, and the less unexpected events there are during the year than the summer. I think my productiveity will increase, which will be important as a draw. I messed around with photoshop more, and am in digital photography in the fall, so I am excited to learn more about that as a resource. This will be a big part of the year, and I am looking forward to it. I also found out that I can scan physical sketches into photoshop, which will help me tremendously. Other difficulties used to include reading all the papers, but now they feel like treats, and I hope they continue to be. I hope this year will go well. Things I've Learned/Fun Facts (Might start adding these to posts for fun): A problem with drawing dinosaurs in the past (other than posture) is that they were often skin-wrapped, or drawn almost as deathly skinny, without the muscle mass that one might find in a massive, carnivorous organism. A common picture I've seen online is where someone drew modern animals like geese and hippos with that style, not accounting for muscle mass or fat, or non-skeletal structures, and its fascinatingly wrong-looking. In addition to skin-wrapping, dinosaurs were drawn as slow, dull beasts, both physically and mentally. This dullness has also changed over the years: except in a few specific cases, we know nothing about the color of dinosaurs skin or plumage. While they were once drawn in muted hues of brown or gray, now non-avian dinosaurs are drawn in hosts of colors. One simply has to look at modern birds to see the possibilities. So dinosaurs went from gray, sad, and skinny to plump and colorful, and I am very excited to draw them in action!
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AuthorJulia Youssef Archives
April 2021
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