Charles Darwin

Portrait of Darwin by Gwen Buchanan

 Because of Charles Darwin's intense studies and lifetime dedication to his work...  we understand EVOLUTION.

Ape Skull by Gwen Buchanan

...below... an excerpt from Charles Darwin's....  "Origin of Species"

""As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive, and as consequently there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of survival and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.""

Charles Robert Darwin... Born 1809... died at 73 years in 1882

to learn almost everything about his life,  go HERE ...

I especially like this excerpt from his examination of
 "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals"  

Portrait of Darwin ...........   approx. 11" x 12",  charcoal, conte on brown paper

Ape Skull..............   approx. 8 1/2" x 11" charcoal, conte on colored cardstock

....... both kinds of paper have a great tooth for holding these drawing mediums.

No Interchange

When this crow  lived

It glided...  free...

High up over my head

When this bird had breath

I could not reach it...

I could not stroke its shantung wings

Now...  in this state

I can hold it in the palm of my hand...

Now where is the reason in that?

...I found this beautiful raven skull in the woods on our sandstone bluff when we were building our home... 1999... it is sitting on a trilobite fossil-filled piece of slate from the Canadian Shield  near Guelph, Ont. retrieved by my fossil-hunting brother when a student there...
...to see that the Beak is  part of the actual skull was enlightening to me... 

Porcupine.... Skull, Quills, Bones

North American Porcupine... Rodentia... Erenthizontidae... Erethizon dorsatum...

Front-on view of Porcupine skull... showing its bright orange gnawing teeth...

...they prefer tree bark and needles, but during different seasons eats leaves, grass, berries, seeds, nuts and flowers... when I imagine a porcupine with a flower hanging out of its mouth, it makes me feel sentimental towards them... prickly untouchable critter nibbling on a delicate flower...




Bottom jaw as seen from above...

This is probably one of the most intact skulls in my collection... especially since it has all its teeth...



Top skull upper jaw as seen from beneath...

Their habitat is widespread throughout wooded areas of North America... they do not hibernate and are active all year... their habit of eating the bark on trees, which eventually kills the trees, is not looked on too fondly and for this they are considered pests... but we must realize they are just part of the ecosystem...



...size of this skull... 4" front to back... 3" top to bottom... 2½" wide...

Large male porcupines can grow to about 30" long... head to tip of tail... and weigh 12 lb. ... females are slightly smaller...



Their teeth are amazing... I slid one out to show the length of them... they are almost 3" long and slide far inside the skull... top and bottom teeth are the same size...



I am imagining rabbit's skulls and teeth are the same.. possibly all rodents teeth are, as they are continually growing... and need constantly honed...




Top of skull... from above... beautiful lines and texture...

Porcupines have a detrimental love of salt... leading them to roadsides and to death...

this love of salt has also lured them to chew the handles off garden tools, canoe paddles, axe handles and saddles... just for a taste of that salty sweat we leave behind... they are only doing what comes naturally...



Slow moving... short sighted... sleeps most of the day...second largest North American rodent, next to beavers... long sharp claws to climb trees..

Porcupines are excellent swimmers due to their hollow quills giving them buoyancy... Quills cover their tail, back, sides, neck and top of head... they are approx. 3 " long...




When fully grown, a Porcupine may have as many as 30,000 quills... plenty to go around and leave a few behind when needed.... The quills are covered with many tiny backward facing barbs at the ends... ... he does not throw or shoot his quills as is commonly thought..

When the Porcupine is threatened, he turns his back... stamps his little feet... and raises and shakes his lightly fixed quills as a warning... just a matter of self-defense.... No, there are no Attack Porcupines...... there are mostly, curious would-be predators, who sniff around them, get just a bit too close and stick their noses where they don't belong.... The only true predators of the porcupine are the Fisher and Humans... The fisher grabs it by the nose, flips it on its back and attacks its unprotected chest and belly...




Our dogs have had a few unfortunate interactions with these creatures.. ending up with quills in their noses... lots of yelping...

...we even got quills stuck into us when we were moving our firewood around... a porcupine had taken up residence in the woodshed for a while and unknowingly left his calling cards after he was gone... they really stick in! ...now we know what the dogs or any other inquisitive creature feels like, when they come in contact with them...

...painful and difficult to remove... but if not removed, they have the ability to continue working their way into the victim... ... better not to let this happen... we have found it easiest to pull out the quills with pliers... first cover the dogs eyes so they don't see the pliers coming and grab the quill or quills close to the dog's skin...




When we discovered the skull in the forest, there were quite a few skeletal bones remaining with it... so we gathered them up too...




I cut the small hollow leg bones into bead size lengths with a jewelers saw ... they were easily threaded (here combined with black glass) to make a rather delicate primitive bracelet... I like the soft hue of the bone... on the ends are closures I created from brass...

...just a note.. bone has a rather unpleasant odor when sawn or drilled... any type of bone dust should not be breathed...




The male porcupine is a solitary animal for most of the year... in late fall he uses his sharp hearing and keen sense of smell to find a partner... after mating the female drives the male away... interesting, hummm... a single offspring is born 7 months later... can walk at once... climb in a week... and are quite playful... they take 4 years to become fully grown...

... maligned and misunderstood... Really not such a bad creature... they just like to chew...

...oh and remember ... Handle with care!!



...porcupine and quill drawings... ink and wash... from my sketchbook...

Ready or Not

TIME... has brought a New Year...

... once a White Tailed Deer walked..

seconds... minutes... hours... days... weeks... months...

... once the Oak grew green...

...stretching... reaching...

... once an Acorn fell ...

Father Time neglects no one...

Once a sugar cane root delved deep...

...cycles... infinitesimal...

...... once a Maple stood tall....



***

Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam), 1561-1626, English Essayist, Philosopher... wrote:

"....Philosophers should diligently inquire into the powers and energy of custom, imitation, emulation, company, friendships, praise, reproof, exhortation, laws, books, studies, etc.;
for these are the things that reign in men's morals; by these agents the mind is formed and subdued.
Out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books, and the like, we do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of TIME...."



....Onward we march.......

Gwen Buchanan at Desideratum Art and Jewelry Studio, New Brunswick, Canada

The Spotted Owl

The wise old owl perched high up in a tree,

She pondered most everything that she did see,

Her claws gently held the rough branch where she sat,

When suddenly... she spied something that looked like a cat...

"I have always liked cats", she said, with a wondering smile...

"but you're fur and I'm feather"........... so she flew one more mile.

Whooo-Whooo-....... Whoo-Whoooooo!!!!!!!

This simple little rhyme was written this morning but the watercolor/pen and ink, I did back this past spring, when things are slower 'round here... I almost wrote the line "you'll be lunch in a while" instead of "so she flew one more mile".... but I just didn't have the heart to have that cat on my conscious. Which line would you have used?

We don't have Spotted Owls but other species of owls fly through the night-air and sit on the roof-tops and in tree-tops, hoo-hooing to each other when we go for walks at midnight....

......fog, stillness, gentle waves and owls ............. sheer magic...

I can't resist returning their call... But I sure wish I knew what we were saying..

***

A beautiful owl skull I discovered online...

The Spotted Owl, Strix occidentalis... Long lived... nocturnal, woodland owl... average length 18"... weight 1 1/2 lbs. ..... round head... brown plumage is heavily spotted with white on the breast and belly...

Roosts in deep shade during the day... Hunting is done mainly at night, usually beginning just after sunset and ending a half hour before sunrise... They use the "sit and wait" approach...

... The Spotted Owl lives in old-growth coniferous forests in western North America....They prefer shaded mountain slopes and canyons over flat plateau areas..... is generally non-migratory...

Spotted owl pairs mate for life... They nest primarily in stick nests, on clumps of mistletoe, in large tree cavities, on broken tops of large trees, on large branches, or cavities in banks and rock faces.... Timing and success in producing offspring are strongly linked to the availability of prey, and not all pairs breed every year.... Old nests tend to be reused year after year... clutch size averages 2-3 eggs...



approx. 3" x 4"... watercolor, brush, india ink and crowquill pen on 140 lb. CP Arches watercolor paper.

A - Hunting We Will Go... Moose Skull

One day John went hunting.... this is what he got... found on the forest floor...

No... the rest of the beast did not come home with him... just this... Slim pickens... at first I thought...


But no... if not our bellies filled... it allowed the feeding of something else within us ... one of the understanding of nature.... that forms every mammal.



This structure of the Moose skull was intriguing to examine... 24" from base to tip of nose... the sheer size alone was something to behold... even with the antlers chewed off... from a passing porcupine or two... showing another step in how this creature fit into the food chain..



Huge worn teeth... that chewed a cud... before he became part of the process...



The teeth are barely held in place now... due to the wearing away of the skull... which allowed the inquiry of how the teeth were held in place .... how large the roots were.... and how far back they went into the skull...

When I shook it ... it click-itty-click jangled like a musical instrument...



Lichens have taken up residence on most of the upper surface...



...A beauty in themselves...


...Feeding on the bone in the never-ending cycle... death feeding life...



I keep it outdoors in the garden... and watch this process continue as the years go by...



Moose... Alces alces... 6' - 9' tall... largest deer in the world... horse size...dk. brown hair... high humped shoulders... huge pendulous muzzle... males have massive palmate antlers, broadly flattened... spread 4'-5'

... cloven hoof prints usually more than 5" long and pointed... poor eyesight, actually moose are color-blind, but have excellent hearing and sense of smell to compensate... very good swimmers,up to 6 mph... and runners, 35 mph... mothers are extremely aggressive and very protective of their calves...

...habitat is spruce forests and swamps... most of Canada, upper regions of United States... when black flies and mosquitoes torment them in summer, they may nearly submerge themselves in lakes...or roll in a wallow to acquire a protective coating...

...Moose are browsers rather than grazers... love waterlilies, aquatic and marsh plants, twigs, buds, aspen, dogwood, cherry, maple , viburnum.... also peeled -off willow and poplar bark and leaves stripped with their bottom lip...

...tend to be solitary animals..


They visit us every now and then...

The Human Skull

The Human Skull... 22 bones, common to all humans... the most complicated bony structure of the body...

The largest form of the skull is the Cranium... where every bump and hollow corresponds to the shape of the brain...



This bone structure is responsible for the outward appearance of the head and face... so much so that experts in anatomical sculpture can take a skull from unknown origin and quite accurately recreate the features of that individual...

At the front of the skull are two orbits that contain the eyeballs... and a central hole for the airway of the nose...


The upper jaw is part of the main skull... The lower jaw is a completely separate bone which pivots on the cheekbone... hinging on either side of the skull at ear level...

The entire facial area is small... compared to the size of the whole skull... making up only about one-eighth of the entire surface.......

The slight size and subtle shape variances of this bony structure are what makes each particular face unique and recognizable...

I love the challenge of taking on the skull as a creative endeavor in any medium... maybe because I feel I am looking back in time... maybe I just want to understand how we human beings are put together... or maybe just because I still have a lot of learning to do...

Click to see Other Skulls on my blog.

approx. 4" x 6" ink, watercolor, crow quill pen, brush on CP Arches WC paper

The Deer Skull

Skulls are so very beautiful.... maybe because they are mostly all one color, it eliminates distractions... and shows their delicacy.... their defined lines... the light and shadow creates intricacies for your examination... contemplation ... pleasure..... that directs you to see what you are not used to seeing so you see the object in a fresher way...

which makes them one of the loveliest natural objects to draw.



I have collected skulls for a long time........ crow, sheep, bobcat, deer, sheep, etc ....
porcupines are particularly special, with long curving teeth that slide way back into the skull.... worth investigating...



This skull is from a female Eastern Whitetail Deer.

a watercolor of this skull is on my posting Ready or Not...