I think it’s time for the puffin post (should I call this a puffin piece?). At the beginning of the year, I decided to enroll in a course of my own making, called “Learning How to Draw Real Animals by Looking at Real Photos of Them.” This was to correct my lazy tendency to try to draw things from memory. When my sister got married, I was in college and decided that what she and her new husband really needed was an oil painting of a peacock done by yours truly. That’s wrong on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to start.

First of all, I’d never EVER painted using oils. With the careless abandon of youth, I forged ahead. Second of all, I didn’t even bother to look at a photograph of a peacock. I just fudged my way through it and came up with something that I’m not sure anyone would have been able to identify as a peacock, although I think it did look like a bird of some sort. Thirdly, nobody needs this kind of item as a wedding gift. At least it was a small painting. Fourthly, I’m sure it presented quite a social conundrum for them as to how and where to display this little monstrosity when I was visiting so as to reassure me that it was appreciated. As I recall, they found a little space on a wall between their refrigerator and some other large item – more space than it deserved, actually.

And so it has continued. When I want to draw something I haven’t wanted to hamper myself with the details. My speciality is stick figures, but this doesn’t tend to work well for animals. You may ask why I’m even bothering with this. Go ahead and ask. I don’t have an answer.

I started with owls and after a few weeks of that, moved onto puffins, penguins and pelicans. Here’s the puffin page:

I have no idea where to go with all of this, but it was worth it all just to find out that a baby puffin is called a puffling. Come on, you’ve gotta admit – that’s pretty darn cute.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.