Monday, March 31, 2008

(Non) Photoshopped Spines, Seadragons and Body Farms

Since last weekend, I have been the proud owner of a mostly-recovered, non-Photoshopped spine, and a beautiful silver iPod Nano, courtesy of my rockin' brother (the iPod, not the spine. That would be a little freaky.) I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I will once I get around to downloading the new iTunes! Aside of that there have been many shiny pretty objects that I'll get around to photographing, including the beautiful rings from Mei. They really are works of art, I absolutely adore 'em and have been wearing them two days straight.

Unfortunately due to circumstances and training, I wasn't able to join the Sketchcrawl that was held this weekend with Sandra and fellow artists - but I did manage some atonement during my family vacation to Langkawi Island last week. We spent time at Under Water World, where I got to see many, many curious sea creatures and lots of penguins. I'm a lousy photographer in general, so I sketched instead. Here is one of the most fascinating creatures there:


This is a Weedy Seadragon. Its colouration is a wonderfully fantastical congolomeration of red and black stripes and other colours I can't quite remember. It really does look like it has all different sorts of weeds growing off of it!

Reading/study material for the night - Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Body Farm by Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. It really is a fascinating read about how the Body Farm at University of Tennessee was established and some of the bizarre cases that have passed through its doors. I've been trying to settle down to do some studying, and between this and the online Architecture notes from MIT, this is a lot more comprehensible.

More updates later, I promise - sketches, jewellery, and mad rambles. That last, after all, is almost obligatory if you go by the people who happily inform me I'm cheerfully insane. You notice I haven't refuted this yet either.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooh, aren't seadragons neat?

The Scripps aquarium in California has a great tank of them, AND a bunch of weed that looks like the 'weed' growing out of them, and has a taunt posted on the tank with a total of how many dragons are REALLY there -- how many can YOU find? :->

Part of a really big camouflage/cryptic-coloration exhibit.

Marcos Mateu said...

Cool simple line sketch Shuku

Daniel said...

Nice sketch.

Sounds like you had a fun holiday. Did you hear about those flying penguins they've recently discovered near the North Pole? Wonders never cease!

Daniel said...

Actually ignore that 'flying penguins' comment as I have since learned I was the victim of an april fool's joke by BBC news :S