What does a ball moss and dolphin vertebrae have in common?

It's simple. Both of these items have made their way into my sketchbook. The assignment today was to draw a ball moss and whatever found object Dr. Moore had in the front of the class room. I knew that the ball moss would drive me absolutely insane. So whatever I did choose for my found object had to be something starkly different. 

Lucky for me, I got my hands on this smaller piece of ball moss. It's scientific name is Tillandsia recurvata.  It is in the bromeliad family which also includes pineapples. I guess what they say is true; being related doesn't mean you're going to look anything alike. It is also native to Florida. 

The hardest thing about drawing this was definitely making sure that I got the off shoots just right. Despite there not being many, drawing this took me the majority of the class. I know I'm getting exasperated when my nose starts to twitch, which happened several times. Despite what the scale says, the specimen weighed 0.3 grams. I wasn't able to snap a picture before it went back down to 0, but I tried weighing it a few times and the number that would come up is 0.3. Additionally, it was 7.14375 cm.
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I decided to treat myself and draw a bone after the stress of drawing the ball moss. Apparently, I had chosen the thoracic vertebrae of a bottlenose dolphin. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is the backbone, or rather a piece of it. 

I forgot to measure it's length (oops!), but it does weigh 21.7 grams. I honestly had a blast with this object. I enjoyed looking for the spacial relationships within the bones and drawing the shapes I saw. I think when you approach art with the question "what shapes do I see?", it makes the process of drawing more enjoyable and, for lack of a better word, easier. I wanted to get back into the swing of painting so I decided to see how much work I could get done with the time I had left, which was, give or take, 30 minutes. 

I didn't think to put the bone on a white piece of paper to prevent the distortion of color, but I did account for the distortion in my rendering. 

I thought to myself, if I could paint this in 30 minutes, what would the ball moss look like if I took time to color it in? So naturally, I went back to my room and did just that. With colored pencil and ink, it took me at least three solid hours. But here is the final outcome. 

Before I sign off, I guess I should show you what materials I used. I hate writing things down tool wise, so enjoy these pictures instead.

Good bye for now!

​Word count: 475