Author Archives: makielb

It’s hard to believe that I spent 5 hours at the EMU Biology Department and at lunch without taking a single picture. It was great seeing Chiron, Anne, Skip and Marianne. Brought back memories of great times. It was also strange seeing my office was not a small conference room. I also spent some timeContinue reading “The art challenge, EMU and more”

The above photo is neither great nor definitive without a lot of experience. It is, however a photo of four Long-eared Owl that were migrating at Whitefish Point. It was in the 1970s when I first started going to Whitefish Point. That was before the formation of the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory (I was aContinue reading “A nocturnal art challenge”

Back around 2003 we were visiting Alexis in Minneapolis and went to a sculpture garden. There was a sculpture of a horse made of tree limbs. Every angle you looked at it was an entirely different perspective. So I decided to do quick sketches of each view with a different brush-pen. I thought that thisContinue reading “Art challenge – variation”

The art challenge for today is spotted. The above sketch was done at the Belle Isle Aquarium back in the early 1990s. The rest were part of a project illustrating all of the “interesting” animals of Mexico. Each of the big cats have different spotting patterns on their backs. The art challenge for tomorrow isContinue reading “Art challenge – spotted”

In Spring, 2002 we went to Washington, D.C. because Susan won a Presidential Teaching Award. Additionally, she got to testify before Congress on the state of education in America. As I tell people, I went along as her arm candy. During the day, while she was at meetings and working I found interesting places forContinue reading “Art challenge – keystone and a trip to Washington, D.C.”

When most people think about a desert they think about dry sandy areas. Well, that’s what we have at Whitefish Point. In fact we live on a sand dune that is over 300 feet deep. When we had our well put in they had to go through 300 feet of sand before hitting clay, thenContinue reading “Art challenge – desert”

Before getting to the art challenge for the day, we had to run errands and decided to do this in a “logical” step-by-step way. First we visited a bog where Susan wanted to look for cranberries. She found some, they were Vaccinium oxycoccos, the small cranberry that tends to bloom before the typical large cranberry.Continue reading “Art challenge, a walk in a bog and lunch”

Spending a lot of time at our cabin we have gotten used to the sound of fog horns, which are rather pleasing as each freighter has a slightly different sound. But when the infamous storms of November arrive it is a different story. The winds blow, frequently all day and night, north winds crossing LakeContinue reading “Art and the sounds of Whitefish Point”

After intense periods of illustrating, which is completely different from drawing, I would take a figure drawing class. Typically, the models for these classes were women, not like the wild ginger which was part of the large project that lead to this. One of those classes got me to drawing women, which is the restContinue reading “Art challenge – wiggly? No! Women.”

The art challenge for toady is “colorful.” The above photo of my friend Heidi’s paint palate perfectly defines “colorful.” But I also wanted to use something that I had done. So here it is in two steps. First there’s the illustration that the watercolor was done from. The above illustration of a buckeye, one ofContinue reading “Art challenge, friends and family”