Class of Curiosities Art Exhibit, Opening Reception Thurs., July 9th

The graduates of the Natural Science Illustration Certificate Program from the University of Washington Extension invite you to Class of Curiosities on July 9th, 2009! We will be exhibiting our artwork from the Natural Science Illustration Certificate Program at the Burke Room of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Opening reception is on Thursday July 9th from 6 pm to 9 pm. There will be refreshments and entertainment. Please join us and support the recent graduates of this program by viewing our art! Click on the art exhibit postcard above for a preview and list of artists. Thank you very much to Michael Liang for designing the postcard!

The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture is a great museum to visit and is open daily from 10 am to 5 pm and there is free admission on the first Thursday of each month from 10 am to 8 pm. Admission will be waived for those only viewing the Natural Science Illustration Exhibit in the Burke Room. Normally, the Burke Room is not a public vieing area and may be occupied with private events. At times other than the opening reception, please call 206-543-7907 to check availability before visiting.

I am currently in Japan and won't be able to go but I'll have two pieces up in this exhibit, one botanical and one mammalian. I wish my fellow graduates the best in luck for this show!

Thank you very much! And whew!

Congratulations to my fellow graduates of the 2009 Natural Science Illustration Certificate Program of the University of Washington!  We did it, we made it through a very challenging and fulfilling 9 months.  Enormous thanks to our amazing instructors: Elizabeth Halfacre, Bart Rulon, Patricia Weyer and Sue Burrus. Thank you also to Lisa Anderson and UW Extension program staff.  Thank you as well to the Burke Museum for hosting our upcoming show (more details to come).  Eternal thanks to my family and friends for their loving support.  In these 9 months, I've had the luck and luxury of moving back to Seattle, throwing myself into the throes of illustrating animals, plants, bones, skulls, fossils, lichen, mushrooms and more, and have had my eyes open wider than ever to my surroundings.  I learned a lot and have a shit load more to learn.  I hope my illustrations will continue to be used for environmental and natural science education and to promote the conservation of wildlife worldwide.  

Thank you very much for visiting my website and for your continued support!  

In a matter of days, I will be traveling from Seattle to the Bay Area of California, then on to Tokyo, Japan with an eventual return to Seattle and then New York City in the fall.  In the meantime, you can continue to contact me at anne@anneyenillustration.com.  Looking forward to seeing what wild things grow in Tokyo.   

Many thanks and much love and peace.

For the Love of Fish

Since I've temporarily moved back to Seattle, my seafood consumption has increased quite a bit.  Before you balk, my diet is about 97% vegetarian.  But being an Asian-American, seafood runs in my blood.  I will say that, take it however you like.  My father was a fisherman for most of his life, and a mushroom forager and a hunter for many years.  We lived in Michigan for a long time, afterall.  In fact, it was his frequent forays into the outdoors that inspired my own love for the environment and for wildlife.  He took me to the state park nearly every week and on occasional hunts when I was growing up, though I dreaded the moment he'd hafta actually shoot at an animal.  On these trips, he warned me that should the opportunity arise, he would shoot his rifle, but luckily, it never happened when I was around.  Not like he never caught game.  We ate duck and deer.  The latter animal hit his parked car and died.  He even caught a ring-necked pheasant one time, a beautiful male that we kept in our garage for a few days.  I wanted to keep it as a pet, but we did finally cook and eat him.  

My dad's love for hunting inspired my love for wildlife and nature.  For some, that relation is no surprise.  For others, they can see some relation between the two but coming from different ideals.  For others, hunting and love for wildlife are considered in direct opposition of each other.   How do we achieve environmental conservation and sustainable livelihoods?  Those are the big questions we must ask.

My dad loves fish.  I painted him the sockeye salmons above for his birthday (acrylic, 14.5" x 8.5").  Salmon runs have been facing tremendous decline.  And I love to eat fish!  I'm trying to be conscious of what fish are in the most danger of depletion from the world's oceans due to our consumption, according to the Marine Stewardship Council.  And what about the floating garbage in our oceans large enough to be the size of a continent?  Our plastic bag usage, packaging, and tossed cigarette butts contribute to this.  We need to change our consumption, and it's not just participating in beach cleanups and putting litter in the right place.  We need to nip it in the bud, at the source, what we buy, what we eat, what we discard, recycle, reuse or avoid buying at all.  And government and industry play an even larger role and need to be held accountable, read Garbageland. Plenty of questions and ideas and things to do on a lot of different fronts.  Now go!

In the meantime, I wanted to wish my dad a happy 77th birthday, and a big thank you for him inspiring me to do what I do...  whether he knows it or not.

Change

Happy Change to all!

And happy spring too!  I say this though it snowed less than a week ago.  But then again, I am originally from a place where it can blizzard as late as May.  Regardless, the recent snow, which stuck around for a few hours in this corner of the country, still brought a flurry of bird activity at my local park, Matthews Beach.  There were hummingbirds, robins, green-winged teals and bald eagles all movin' about.  

With the change of season (and of various other grand things!), so it comes to my artwork as well.  I am mid-way through my Certificate program in Natural Science Illustration at the University of Washington in Seattle.  It is a challenging and enriching program that has taught me how to draw and illustrate all over again.  Not like I was very set in my ways in the first place.  It has been the art and natural science illustration education that I have craved for years.  My classmates and instructors are pretty awesome and we motivate each other and dialogue quite a bit about the intersection of natural science and the arts.  

I just wanted to also send out a big "hang in there!!" during these unpredictable times, especially to artists and others who do what inspires them to do what they do.  To all, hang in there!

A Pacific squid (in watercolor, above) and a fiddler crab (in color pencil, below) for your enjoyment...

Birds of Prey Galore

Sorry it has taken me forever to post something new!  Between moving across the country, enrolling in a natural science illustration program at University of Washington and other changes, I used the extra hour granted today to gather some stuff together that I've been working on lately.  Goes along well with where I'm at now, the city of Seattle, nestled in the mighty Pacific Northwest.  I've lived here on and off since 1995, just moved back after four years in the Big Apple, and though I miss New York City A LOT, it's great to be here too.  Seattle has always been a place I can come back to, and always have, each time with a fresh perspective and a new appreciation.  Especially coming from four years spent in as dense as a city as NYC, I appreciate the towering trees here. 

 

With bald eagles soaring overhead in the city, I wonder also how many owls these pines, firs, spruces and cedars shelter.  

The artwork I post today mostly comes from work I did in September for the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation for an upcoming environmental education booklet on birds of prey.  It was much much fun to do and I learned a lot about these tremendous birds.

Enjoy and happy fall to you! 

So How's Your Defpovision?

Wow, hello, it's been way too long and I apologize!  Lots of things have been going on that has kept me from posting for awhile: personal and mechanical changes and upheavals, whoa!! But all is good and moving along just fine now.  It's good to have a little chaos now and then, I think.  For some reason this paragraph comes out in bold without my making it so! Wheeeee!!!!

On the art front, I've been busy, illustrating outreach and environmental education materials.  I am illustrating icons for one of my clients.  Icons!  I love icons, they're so...iconic. What is an icon anyhow? To me, something bold and bright, sometimes brash, that stands out, looks great on a t-shirt, poster, sign, etc. Because I used to silkscreen much, bold thick lines were a natural part of my images.  In fact, I used to have a business silkscreening t-shirts on re-used (and washed) cotton shirts.  I'd sell them on the big open street market that used to take place during "first Thursdays" in Pioneer Square, Seattle (before they shut it down).  The place was so damn thriving, filled with artists vendors, street performers and music.  Business was "brisk" and even if you didn't sell a thing, it was great to talk to passerbys and trade with other artists.  I'm not sure why it was eventually shut down, but something to do with the lack of business licenses among the artists and a generally self-regulated street market where artists kept 100% of sales.  It was thriving for more than 20 years before there were complaints from the art establishment and enough muscle to shut down a bustling scene that attracted many people to the blighted area.  Go figure.

I'd also sell at the monthly I Heart Rummage events in Seattle which still seems to be going strong.  Nowadays, I just want someone else to do the printing, publishing and distributing :)

Anyhow, I digress.  I'm working on these icons of recreational activities for New Yorkers and other visitors to the parks.  I thought for this post, I'd gather some of my past t-shirt designs and put them together for a one-pager "retrospective" (graphic at top of this post).  Click it to enlarge.  You can print this on a 8.5" by 11" piece of paper (use recycled or the back of used paper), hang on the wall and test your own defpovision!

Many many thanks again for the comments and emails and many many apologies for the long delay between posts! 

Til next time,

Keep enjoying summer cuz it's not over yet!!!!!!!

Out to the Edge and Back, 5 Days a Week...

Happy summer to you! I have no new artwork to share because I haven't had the time to work on new stuff lately because I've started a new job that takes me out to the watery edge of this city and back every workday. It takes me a long time to get out there, a three segmented journey but one of peaceful travel across the many colorful neighborhoods of New York City. Best of all, I ain't driving. So I just sit back and chill, read or meditate, as the faces change around me and sometimes there are some who almost the whole way with me for nearly the same distance. Where are those people going? What brings them there? My theory is that where there is public transportation between point to point, there will be travelers. And now that it's beach season, my rides are accompanied with excited youngsters wrapped in beach towels and finely dusted with sand and salt water.

My work is focused on the environs, flora and fauna of Jamaica Bay. Jamaica Bay is the watery oasis that stretches beyond the hustle and bustle of New York City. On my way there, I exit Queens, traverse down Manhattan and cross through Brooklyn. On my way back, I loop through the Rockaways and hook up through Queens back to Astoria. It's a far journey, but out there is where I want to work, by the sea and out of the city, while still being in the city per se. My perspective on the city is changed from being on the water, plying across the bay, stopping at various uninhabited salt marsh islands to study various critters. Pretty cool job, really.

What I have to share with you is my latest illustration piece on Pierre the penguin, published in the current issue of Wildlife Conservation magazine, the publication of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). I don't know if it's on stands now because I think it's a membership publication, meaning that you must be a member of WCS to receive it. But here is the illustration nonetheless. Some exciting upcoming projects include another piece for WCS' magazine and illustrations for a birds of prey environmental education booklet for the city. Will write more later...Peace!