"Avatar State"

"Avatar State"

2023

Yip-yip

"Smile"

2024

Gelada (Theropithecus gelada)

Geladas are among my favorite monkeys, but all that fur sure is a pain to draw.

"Nature's Spear"

2024

Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis)

In the mood to draw rhinos. It's curious how in the two African species the horns sometimes grow ridiculously long.

The pose and perspective made this fellow challenging to draw and to shade, but it came out quite alright.

"No Living Man"

2023

Out of the wreck rose the Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her. With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace. 

-"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", by J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien's stories are teaming with examples of heroic characters who, against all odds, manage to triumph against foes far greater than they are: you see it in Bard and Smaug, in Sam and Shelob, and also in Éowyn and the Witch-king. Her immense courage in facing down an enemy that is terror and despair personified cannot be overstated; and it was her bravery, her love and devotion for Théoden, her bond with Merry, and a wee bit of help from prophecy that carried the day.

I much prefer the timing of the fall of the Witch-king in the movies than in the books. In the novel, the Witch-king is destroyed shortly after the arrival of the Rohirrim, with a lot more battle left to fight. Here he is destroyed almost at battle's end, at the very same moment that Aragorn's reinforcements arrive to turn the tide. Despair is vanquished at the very same moment that hope is restored.

"Sunglasses"

2024

"Vanishing Homeland"

2024

Palestine Mountain Gazelle (Gazella gazella)

A Palestine Mountain Gazelle surveys the ravages of colonialism on its habitat. 

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The myth that Israeli settlers are indigenous to the land of Palestine is absurd on many fronts, among them being their mistreatment of that same land they claim to belong to. For starters, the state of Israel is highly dependant on and contributing to the military industrial complex, one of the most oppressive and polluting entities on the planet. They're also famous (or rather, infamous) for uprooting and destroying native crops and trees and replacing them with invasive plants that not only require more water to tend, but that are also more susceptible to fires. In attempts to greenwash their occupation, they raze Palestinian villages and neighborhoods and build natural parks and reserves on top of them, thus continuing on with a centuries-old colonial practice that has been put to use on stolen lands everywhere. And just like the US-Mexico border wall on my side of the world, the equally racist Apartheid Wall on the West Bank divides up the landscape and severely impedes the free movement of both people and wildlife. The list goes on.

I guess the ecological impact of the current genocidal aggression on Gaza will not be fully apparent until the smoke clears. But already we do know that the first months of the bombing released more emissions than 20 climate vulnerable nations do in a year...so there's that. 

All this to say that for people that are so zealous of their supposed "rights" to the land, Israeli Zionists really do seem to go out of their way to hurt it...to carve it up...to destroy it. And that's what colonizers, anytime, everywhere, do.