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Mammoth days continue
Carl Buell is working on his proboscidean art and I'm working on my woolly mammoth essays, but just so you don't lose that mammoth fever, I thought I'd throw out a few bits to stoke the fires.

First of all, if you haven't been to Olduvai George to check out the beginning of Carl's series, you should do so now. He started Sunday with a Rhynchotherium. he promises that in about two weeks he'll work his way up to my friend, Mammuthus Primigenius.

Next, mammoth days are spreading across the internets. The once and future blogger known as the Farmer has returned. After a brief hiatus--do farmers take hiati? Maybe he went fallow for a season--he's back. And he has a classic post that mentions brilliant mammoth scholars. Go say hi, and then come back.

While we're waiting for Carl's mammoth, I thought I'd give you mine.



This is the standard woolly mammoth of the Siberian and Alaskan steppe during the late Pleistocene. It's a medium sized male. Rather than use the traditional clip-art caucasian (CAC) to indicate the size of the creature, I've added an emeperor penguin standing on a step ladder, which is just as historically probable as the CAC. We should note that during the Pleistocene there were neither emeperor penguins nor step ladders on the mammoth steppe. For that matter, there still are no emeperor penguins and a good step ladder, not 90% duct tape, is rather hard to come by there.

Carl takes the time to explain how he creates his drawings. He does his work on-screen, so whether you are an artist or a computer geek, you'll probably find his technical notes interesting. In that spirit, I thought you'd want to know how I create my "art." I used an almost dried-up, Micron-brand, disposable rapidograph and a sheet of copier paper yanked from my printer duing the three minutes it took my old Compaq computer to boot. I was only able to do this because both of the cats are sleeping on my clever wife and not sitting in front of the computer screen. I then scanned the drawing on a 99 dollar scanner and cropped it using some cheap software that came with the computer.

Art is not an elite hobby, it's available to anyone with an imagination--or a cheap pen and some copier paper.